Professor Helen Dodd

Affiliation 

University of Exeter 

Bio 

Helen Dodd completed her PhD and postdoctoral work at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. Helen is now a Professor of Child Psychology at the University of Reading. She is one of only a handful of psychologists to have been awarded a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship. Her research examines risk factors for child anxiety and cognitive mechanisms underpinning children's anxiety. She takes a multimethod approach, combining a background in experimental and longitudinal methods with more recent training in qualitative methods. Helen's work has been funded by the Ecomomic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Royal Society, British Academy, Australian Research Council, Kavli Foundation and UKRI. She has received awards from the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA) and the British Psychological Association (BPS) and holds an honorary position at Macquarie University, Centre for Emotional Health. Her Future Leaders Fellowship takes a unique approach to the prevention of anxiety and asks whether adventurous play could be used to target some of the risk mechanisms that we know underpin anxiety in children. Helen is committed to conducting research with impact and works alongside a range of organisations including Play England, Outdoor Play and Learning, Play Wales, Learning through Landscapes and the Association of Play Industries to ensure her work has relevance to practice. She sits on the Children's Play Policy Forum and has played a lead role in the PlayFirst campaign during the pandemic. Her research is regularly featured in the national and international media, including The Sunday Times, Washington Post and BBC news. 

Title

Risk factors for child anxiety: could adventurous play help?

Abstract

Rates of emotional disorders in 5-15 years olds increased by 49% between 2004 and 2017. Of these, anxiety disorders are the most common. Today, in the UK, approximately half a million children have an anxiety disorder. At the same time as we have seen rates of anxiety increasing, children’s opportunities for outdoor, adventurous play have decreased. Adventurous play is defined as thrilling, exhilarating play where the child experiences a level of fear and takes age-appropriate risks. Common forms of adventurous play in children include climbing trees, riding a bike fast downhill and swinging on a rope swing. The word adventure is defined as ‘An unusual, exciting and possibly dangerous activity’ and this captures well the type of play that falls under the term adventurous play. Extensive research has examined risk factors for child anxiety and established cognitive factors that underpin anxiety in children. As a result we now have a good understanding of some of the factors that underpin children’s anxiety risk. In this talk I will describe how adventurous play could be used as a mechanism to target these risk factors in children and, in turn, to decrease their anxiety risk. I will describe the existing evidence that supports these ideas and outline a research agenda that will allow us to evidence what children learn when they are given autonomy and space to play in an adventurous way.