Jill Wood founded and manages
Adventure Play, an outdoor, child-directed after-school program at The Parish School in Houston Texas, where she also serves as school librarian. Established in 2008, Adventure Play is modeled after adventure playgrounds in the United Kingdom and uses the professional approach of
playwork to support children’s play. It is one of only a handful of such playgrounds in the United States and the only one based at a school for neurodiverse people.
Jill is also the founder of Bayou City Play, a group of artists, librarians, and therapists, who partner with organizations to support and improve play opportunities for Houston’s children. Bayou City Play has collaborated with public libraries, schools, parks, and hospitals since 2014 to promote the importance of children’s voices and culture through community gatherings and education. She is also a regional consultant and speaker for Pop-Up Adventure Play, a UK-based organization that advances the field of playwork through training, presentations, research, and publication.
She is co-author of
Adventures in Risk: Comparing risk of injury between an adventure playground and traditional playground and “
Conflict and Play in a Child’s World,” for
Exchange: The Early Childhood Leaders’ Magazine. Jill also serves on the advisory board for LiiNK Center for Healthy Play at TCU.
Jill believes that play is an integral part of a children's lives, and like exploring library shelves, it’s much better when there are a lot of choices and no one is telling you exactly what to choose.
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