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Professional Development

Ottawa, September 27, 2019 – Outdoor Play Canada was launched today at the Breath of Fresh Air Outdoor Play Summit in Ottawa – an open-air conference where outdoor play thought leaders, practitioners, researchers, and policy-makers gathered to exchange knowledge and best practices for promoting outdoor play. Outdoor Play Canada has a vision that outdoor play is...

The second edition of the Canadian Parks Conference will be held at the Québec City Convention Centre from October 7 to October 10, 2019 on the topic Parks for all and all for parks. The issues that will be addressed include collaboration, connecting to nature, conservation, and leadership. The event is coming up soon. If you don’t...

Are you looking for a Breath of Fresh Air? The first national Outdoor Play Summit is only 50 days away! Join us September 27-29th, 2019 for a national forum on outdoor play, taking place in an open-air environment, located at the Ottawa Forest and Nature Schools and Wesley Clover Park’s Campground, where thought leaders, practitioners, researchers and...

Play Outside NS shares a common goal of promoting, facilitating and communicating the importance of outdoor play in the early years, to foster health and well-being. In July and August 2019, they hosted “Summer to PLEY” (Physical Literacy in the Early Years), a series of knowledge sharing events showcasing work from the PLEY project. They...

BREATH OF FRESH AIR Outdoor Play Summit September 27-29, 2019 Ottawa, Ontario Are you passionate about providing a breath of fresh air to children through outdoor play? Join us for Breath of Fresh Air, a two-day Outdoor Play Summit where thought leaders, practitioners, researchers, and policy makers can connect and share best practices. This innovative national forum on outdoor play takes...

The Canadian Public Health Association recently released a toolkit composed of infographics, research summaries, decision-making tools, promising practices, and a discussion document. The toolkit provides excellent resources and information on the importance of unstructured play, how to develop policy to facilitate play within schools and communities, and current research in the field of risky play....

In 2019, the Best Start Resource Centre hosted their annual conference for service providers working on preconception and prenatal health, and early child development and education. The 2019 conference topics included guided play for language/literacy and spatial learning in young children.   Learn more about the 2019 conference here....

Registration for Healthy Parks, Healthy People has just opened. The 2019 Healthy Parks Healthy People Forum will bring together parks and recreation professionals, health professionals, researchers, policy-makers, academics, students, trainees and community members to share the latest research, best practices, and progressive policies related to the human health and well-being benefits of nature. This includes both direct contact with nature...