Rochester's Community Wishbook

Generation Two is a school-based program that supports and trains community volunteers who come in to have weekly, one-to-one, child-centered play sessions with K-2 students. The goal of G2 is relationship building because relationships foster resiliency, and relationships provide children with the emotional strength to learn. The program is universal and inclusive; all children in the grade level participate. The volunteers, mostly older adults and college students, are trained in child-directed play. Play is the vehicle because it is joyful, and it is a language we all speak.  During the play sessions, children are shown empathy and acceptance for exactly who they are; they are validated as people who matter.  Volunteers turn over control of the play session to their young friend, and because of this unconditional acceptance of their play choices, friendships grow quickly and deeply.  Confidence and resiliency are a natural outgrowth of this acceptance and validation, and confident, resilient children are more emotionally-ready for life’s challenges, whether it is in the classroom, in their peer relationships, or in their lives outside of school.  

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Generation Two has recently launched the Please Play Campaign (July 2020) in order to help parents and caregivers to engage in child-directed play with their children at home. G2 is not running our school programs this year, so our hope is that children can still benefit from child-directed play at home with their parents and caregivers.  Instructional videos can be found at www.pleaseplay.org