What is HCPP?

The Homeless Children's Playtime Project (HCPP) is a coalition of concerned community members providing weekly activities, healthy snacks, and opportunities for play to the children in four shelter and transitional housing sites across the District of Columbia. With your help, we will expand to other shelters and transitional housing programs that need our services.

Trained volunteers provide regular opportunities to play by creating and supervising play spaces and facilitating conflict resolution and therapeutic self-expression through art, music, reading, writing, sports and recreation. HCPP is primarily an all-volunteer organization with only one part-time paid staff, supervised by a licensed social worker and a team of “Site Coordinators” that lead the five weekly play programs.

To learn more about HCPP's leadership, click here: Leadership

How Does HCPP Work?

This winter, the Homeless Children’s Playtime Project is expanding it’s services to operate a total of five play and recreation programs at four service sites. For a list of addresses, click here.

Every Monday and Thursday evening playtime operates at the Turning Point Transitional Housing Program (part of the Salvation Army) in Columbia Heights. Between 5 and 10 volunteers generally provide playtime with 10-15 children, generally under the age of 8 while their mothers attend a “Life skills” class. A Day Leader is responsible for bringing a healthy snack and an arts and crafts activity. Children rotate between activities including a mini-basketball hoop, baby toys, books and board games.
 

Every Tuesday evening playtime operates at the Families Forward Family Emergency Shelter at DC General Hospital. Located on a rehabilitated floor of an abandoned hospital, the hypothermia shelter is open to homeless families from November to March. The facility can accommodate 50 families on two different floors for a total of 100 families. The city allocated a play room for HCPP which will be designed and outfitted by the Horizons Foundation. Volunteers will provide activities for children of all ages in this space.

Each Wednesday beginning in January of 2008, Volunteers will conduct playtime at the Northwest Church Family Network (NCFN) in the Sursum Corda neighborhood of Ward 6. Due to an unfortunate funding cut, the program is no longer able to provide services to the 60 children living in the facility. HCPP volunteers will fill this void with weekly activities in the on-site play facility.
 

On Saturdays volunteers will initiate a new partnership with Community of Hope’s facility, the Hope Apartments in Southeast DC in Ward 8. This program is one of very few in the city where mothers suffering from substance abuse are able to live with their children while they go through recovery. The newly renovated building includes a series of cheerful indoor play spaces as well as outdoor space. Volunteers will complement the array of services offered by Community of Hope including staff dedicated to child case management.
 

All HCPP volunteers will also provide children with healthy snacks and an array of playtime activities to meet the child’s developmental needs.
 

For more information about getting involved with HCPP’s volunteer program, click here.
 

How Did HCPP Start?

The Homeless Children’s Playtime Project (HCPP) began in 2003 by a coalition of concerned community members, led by social worker and child advocate, Jamila Larson and law student Gina Kline. After discovering there were twenty children living in the largest homeless shelter in the country located just a few blocks from the U.S. capitol building, they helped establish a playroom and begun providing weekly snacks and activities. In the spring of 2005, HCPP expanded its program to serve the largest emergency shelter for families in the District. Every weekend, volunteers provide recreational activities to 50 children living at the D.C. Village Emergency Family Shelter in far southwest Washington. Trained volunteers from the community provide nurturing attention to the children as well as arts and educational activities, healthy snacks, sports and recreation, special events, and bicycle, equipment and toy drives.

Why Play?

It is well documented that homelessness causes physical, emotional, and developmental harm to children, yet the resources that serve them are shrinking and largely inaccessible.  Children are often left to manage the trauma of being homeless on their own.  As a result of the traumatic stress associated with homelessness, research has shown that a disproportionate number of children in shelters suffer from emotional, behavioral and learning problems.  These children generally  enter  school  without the basic skills they need to succeed and are  often  lagging   years   behind.   Recent   Harvard   Medical   School research found that, “almost half of school age homeless children have emotional problems like anxiety and depression.  They also experience four times the rate of developmental delays and double the learning disabilities, and they are twice as likely to be suspended from school or repeat a grade as other poor children.”

In most D.C. shelters, children are being routinely denied the developmental opportunities and psychological support necessary for healthy child development.  Recreation is severely restricted in the shelter environment and children are routinely denied necessities like soap, toys and books.  Without volunteers to protect a child’s right to play, the playground and playrooms sit empty and locked, the common spaces devoid of any books or toys for children to enjoy.   The traumatizing effect of homelessness on children could be dramatically reduced by the introduction of play programs in the family shelters.   Play is essential to childhood development and is one of the most healing forces that therapists use to help children overcome stress and trauma.  For children faced with the stress of shelter living, play becomes a healing way to cope and restore normalcy to their lives.  Play is a human right and developmental necessity that all children deserve regardless of housing status. 

There are volumes of literature about why play is essential to brain development and learning.  As HCPP volunteers, our role is to protect children’s right to play by providing opportunities to enjoy play spaces and equipment that is otherwise restricted in the shelter environment.  Providing one-on-one attention to children whose emotional and social needs are often ignored sends them the message that they are important and deserve to enjoy the rites of childhood that play and recreation provide.

How Can I get Involved?

Easy! Click here for details:   Get Involved