Speaker biography
Dr Mike Wragg
Senior Lecturer in Playwork, Leeds Beckett University
Mike has been involved in the children’s play and playwork sector since the early 2000s when he began a career as a Play Development Officer in Bradford. During this time, he founded the Big Swing Adventure Playground, which is at the heart of the play development charity he chairs: Play Bradford.
Between then and now, Mike has been the CEO of Warwick Community Campus, Head of Play and Youth Services in Stoke-on-Trent, a private play and playwork trainer and consultant and is now a Senior Lecturer in Playwork at Leeds Beckett University, teaching on the undergraduate programme and supervising PhD candidates in playwork.
Here, he was awarded a PhD in the application of play and playwork in the creative industries and developed and delivered postgraduate play and playwork education programmes in Beijing, China; at the University of the West Indies, Jamaica; and at the Polytechnic Institute of Lisbon, Portugal.
His current research addresses playwork across the life course, evaluating the public value of community-led adventure playgrounds and the application of playwork methods with people living with advanced dementia in care homes.