In his keynote, Paul Frisoli playfully reflects on the last 5 years of The LEGO Foundation funding in humanitarian settings. He demonstrates what the foundation is learning, specifically about how play has positively influenced young children, children, caregivers, and teachers living in context affected by conflict and crisis. He demonstrates how play must be an essential ingredient of all humanitarian action and policy for children, to help create a sense of normalcy, sense of hope, reinforce strong bonds and relationships, and reinforce well-being, development, and learning. He concludes by highlighting how The LEGO Foundation is integrating these learnings in the new “Children on the Move” strategy to enhance outcomes for children in the next 5 years.
Paul Frisoli, Ed.D. is the Team Lead for The LEGO Foundation humanitarian portfolio, called Children on the Move. He provides people and functional knowledge leadership on play-based Mental Health & Psychosocial Support (MHPSS), and social-emotional learning (SEL), and Early Childhood Development programming, research, and advocacy in conflict and crisis settings. Before joining The LEGO Foundation, Paul worked with a range of NGOs on designing, implementing, and researching play-based mindfulness, MHPSS, SEL, and well-being interventions across a range of humanitarian contexts. His doctoral research explored the connections between teachers’ continuous professional learning communities and their social-emotional well-being in acute conflict settings.
