Forensic Playwork is a term coined by the British playworker Marc Armitage in the early 2000s. It describes the practice of observing, reading, and interpreting the subtle physical and environmental traces children leave behind when they play by applying ‘detective-like’ skills to decipher how a space is being used.
Unlike a ‘ludic ecology’, which interprets the affordances within a playspace from which it is possible to predict what ‘might happen’ within that space, Forensic Playwork identifies signs such as wear-and-tear marks, trampled grass, created hidden spaces, and the position of (seemingly abandoned) play materials, to draw conclusions on what is ‘actually happening’ within a playspace. It does this after children have left and are no longer onsite.
For example, the wear and tear marks left behind on a piece of fixed play equipment, such as a climbing frame for example, after having being played on for a significant amount of time lead to very particular wear and tear marks that can indicate how often the piece is being used (if at all), how it is being used, and even what age group of children are using it the most.
It can also help identify the places where there has been a recent play frame (especially recuring play frames) which helps build a picture of how a given playspace and specific parts of that space are being used, even if the actual play frame was not spotted while children were present.
This kind of information is invaluable when it comes to learning how our playspaces are being used, as opposed to how we think they might be being used, and suggests what kind of provision to provide when replacing equipment and/or making significant changes to the physicality of the playspace.
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Photo taken by Marc during a Forensic Playwork examination of a public playground. The extreme shininess of the rungs on this ladder of a multi-play feature (climbing frame to you) indicate high and regular usage. Note also that the bottom rung shows less wear and tear than the others because only feet access this rung – the ones above are being used by feet and hands.
See also Ludic Ecology (to come), Play Frame
