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Policy Practice Research

Research

The article titled "The health benefits of the great outdoors: A systemic review and meta-analysis of greenspce exposure and health outcome", was published by Caiomhe Twohig-Bennett and Andy Jones in Environmental Research with the objective of quantifying evidence for the impact of green spaces on a range of health outcomes. Prior to this publication,  no systematic...

04 December, 2018

Children’s mental health, involving their emotional, psychological, and social well-being, is an important factor influencing children’s development of a sense of identity, positive self-esteem, healthy peer and family relationships, and stress coping mechanisms. Mental health issues therefore have the potential to prevent children from reaching developmental and social milestones, and persist into adulthood. Mental health issues are...

17 October, 2018

From September 27th-29th, 2018, the University of British Columbia Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies hosted the Levelling the Playing Fields: Strategies to Promote Outdoor Play 2018 Roundtable. The goal of the roundtable was to develop a (research) strategy for systematically creating opportunities for outdoor play in schools and communities in Canada.   Learn more about this...

27 September, 2018

"The Classroom in Open Air" Project, by Naomi W. Reichstein The Classroom in Open Air Project, by Naomi W. Reichstein for the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation, aimed to examine which Vancouver-area schools use parks, which parks are most popular for school use, which subjects are taught outdoors, and what other school-based activities occur in...

02 August, 2018

The StreetPLAY Pilot Program, led by Earth Day Canada in collaboration with the City of Toronto, closed 7 street sections in an inner-urban neighbourhood in Toronto to promote children's play. Researchers from the TRANSFORM lab (led by OPC's Leadership Group Member, Dr. Raktim Mitra) at Ryerson University evaluated the pilot project to assess the impact...

05 February, 2018

In 2017, the International Play Association hosted their Triennial World Play Conference: Unleashing the Power of Play, in Calgary, Alberta. This triennial conference is for play researchers, advocates, designers, educators, practitioners, providers, and policymakers and aims to celebrate play, understand its many benefits, and provide all children with the chance to engage in rich, meaningful,...

10 September, 2017

From May 30-31, 2016, KidActive led a 2-day Risky Play and Outdoor and Unstructured Play Workshop at the Thunder Bay and District Health Unit as part of the Healthy Kids Community Challenge; a program funded by the Ministry of Health and Long-term care aimed at improving children's health by promoting healthy behaviours. The Risky Play...

30 May, 2016