The Play Protocol® - A methodology used globally by world class Kids Life Coaches and Mentors

Where a New Story for Childhood Begins

There is a moment, usually quiet and unplanned, when you realise that the work you’ve been doing for decades has slowly grown into something bigger than you ever intended. Not because you mapped it out meticulously. Not because you forced it, but because it was ready. Because you were ready. Because the world needed it, even before you had the language for it.

My Play Protocol® was born in that kind of moment.

Not out of frustration with what exists, but out of a deep sense that something more was possible for children and for the adults supporting them. Not a shiny new method or a clever framework, but a way of being with children that feels human again. Honest. Uplifting. Grounded and refreshingly uncomplicated.

For years, I watched people who care deeply about children—parents, doctors, coaches, teachers, youth workers, community leaders—trying to navigate heavy emotional landscapes with tools that were never designed for everyday life. Tools that left them feeling uncertain, overwhelmed, or afraid of “getting it wrong.” Tools that made childhood feel clinical when it should feel curious.

Alongside this, I kept witnessing the same spark in the adults I trained. A kind of awakening. A remembering. A sense of relief mixed with excitement.

“Oh,” they would say, “it can be like this? It can feel like this?”

That feeling of possibility, of alignment, of returning to something essential is what shaped The Play Protocol® and it underpins the Kids Life Coach Certification that I offer. Not because coaching is about play, but because play for children is the one language they are fluent in. 

It is not a set of steps. It is not a rigid system. It is not a prescription.
It is a story we choose to tell differently.

A story where children aren’t viewed as fragile projects, but as whole people with inner worlds worth exploring. A story where adults don’t need to become experts, they simply need to become present.
A story where play becomes the gateway, not the reward. A story where the relationship leads the process, not the other way around.

What has surprised me most is how universal this story has become. No matter where I travel, or where I train, no matter the culture or community, there is a deep, shared yearning for a gentler, more sustainable way to guide children. Something less performative. Less pressured. Less adult-led. Something that brings ease back into connection and joy back into learning.

Play does that.
It always has.

The Play Protocol® simply holds the space for adults to remember how. This is why our Play Based Coaching System® works! 

But...beyond the philosophy and the practice, there is something much more personal behind all of this—a dream I’ve carried quietly for years. A dream of a world where a child’s emotional wellbeing doesn’t depend on luck. A world where every adult, whether they have one child or work with hundreds, feels equipped and confident and inspired. A world where we stop trying to fix childhood, and instead begin to honour it.

I have not been building a programme or a certification. 
I have built a movement of people who believe in childhood again.

To me, that is why this matters so much right now. The world is loud, complicated and fast. Children feel it. Adults feel it. The old ways of coping are crumbling, and in their place is an opening an invitation to return to something more intuitive, humane, and nourishing.

The Play Protocol® is my answer to that opening.
The door I’m holding open for others.
The place where my dream meets yours.

Because movements don’t grow because one person pushes.
They grow because many people lean in at the same time and say:

“Yes. This is the world I want to help build.”

So this week on Universal Children's Day, 20 November, I will be hosting a FREE Play Protocol® masterclass and guests are welcome to attend alongside our global network of Kids Life Studio® Coaches.  If you feel that tug in your chest, that soft recognition, that sense that perhaps this is the direction we’re meant to be walking, then I urge you to book your space.

We have revolutionised Kids Life Coaching. We have led the movement in Play Based Coaching and now...The Play Protocol is extending on our work to reach mentors...parents, teachers, social workers, doctors...to support any child, anywhere, anytime.

If you are reading this, then you are already part of the story. It is about what you do next from here. Will you go back to work in a silo. Drifting from pay check to pay check. Wishing you could do more to support children. Or will you be part of the solution, part of our global movement that leads to Rebranding Childhood®. No matter what, my wish is that this blog shifts your positioning and that you open your heart to the possibility of childhood. 

Come and hear more. Join me this Thursday at 4 pm UK for a FREE Play Protocol® Masterclass on Universal Children's Day. Bookings essential! See you there!