Working in schools characterized by poverty and low student achievement can be stressful for the teachers and can lead to teacher emotional exhaustion and burnout. These teachers often report a lack of training on effective ways to support the emotional needs of children. This study reports the findings of the first year of a 3-year program evaluation that examined the impact of child–teacher relationship training (CTRT) on teachers’ stress, perception of children, social justice attitudes, and ability to demonstrate the CTRT skills in the classroom at a school identified as 1 of 3 schools in the state to institute a trauma-informed program. This phenomenological pilot study explored the experiences of 4 kindergarten teachers who participated in child–teacher relationship training. The teachers worked in a school identified to participate in a statewide resilience project because of the high percentage of children in the school who lived in poverty. The qualitative analysis identified 5 themes regarding their experience: training, skills, developing relationships, obstacles/challenges, and commitment. Limitations, directions for future research, and implications for school-based play therapists and school counselors are discussed.

Play Therapy Primary Areas:

• Skills and Methods
• Special Topics
  

A considerable amount of research exists covering the efficacy of play therapy training models; however, research is not robust when looking at the best training methods applicable for practitioners who may encounter a deaf or hard-of-hearing client. The purpose of the current qualitative study was to explore lived play therapy training experiences, including supervision experiences of mental health professionals who have used play therapy with deaf and/or hard-of-hearing clients. Questions explored the lived experiences and perceptions of both pre-service and mental health professionals regarding their play therapy training experiences related to people who are deaf as well as what they perceived to be the effectiveness of their training. Several salient themes emerged to include access to play therapy training and supervision, the value of kinesthetic practice, the importance of process-oriented supervision, depth provided by intensive workshops, and participants’ difficulties adapting play therapy for deaf and hard-of-hearing clients.

Play Therapy Primary Areas:

• Special Topics

This study of at-risk Kindergarten students examined the effectiveness of child-centered play therapy (CCPT) on academic achievement. The experimental group received biweekly, 30 min play therapy sessions for 6 weeks. Findings indicated that the Kindergarten students participating in the experimental group in this study (n = 18) demonstrated a statistically significant increase on the Early Achievement Composite of the Young Children’s Achievement Test (Hresko, Peak, Herron, & Bridges, 2000) when compared to children in the wait-list control group (n = 18). Results demonstrate continued support for the use of CCPT as an intervention for academic achievement.

Play Therapy Primary Areas:

• Skills and Methods
• Special Topics

Recently a 6-week reality play therapy (RePT) model was developed for use with clients ages 7–14. RePT utilizes directive activities by integrating play and reality therapy techniques. In this study, we provided a 2-hr training on the RePT model with 24 participants in the mental health profession. At the end of the training, participants shared their perceptions of the RePT model, rated their confidence in utilizing activities from RePT, and rated the likelihood that they would utilize these interventions with child and young adolescent clients. Overall, participants reported confidence in utilizing most aspects of the RePT model and were more likely to implement the RePT activities that they felt most confident about after the training. Based on participants’ feedback, suggestions for revising and expanding the RePT model are provided, along with suggestions for future research with the RePT model.

Play Therapy Primary Areas:

• Special Topics
  

Because of the recent trend toward evidence-based practices, practitioners have been called to provide evidentiary support for the play-therapy modalities they have used. Although Adlerian play therapy is one of the most widely used approaches (Lambert et al., 2007) and is one of the few EBPs for play therapy (SAMSHA, 2016), it would add further credibility to the model if interrater reliability/agreement in assessing fidelity were established. In this study, we used qualitative video-content analysis of 27 individual play-therapy sessions to establish interrater reliability of using the Adlerian Play Therapy Skills Checklist (Kottman, 2009; Kottman & Meany-Walen, 2016). Results indicated acceptable interrater reliability across the four phases of Adlerian play therapy, ranging from r = .78 to r = .89. Implications for counselor education and clinical practice, limitations, and suggestions for future research are presented.

Play Therapy Primary Areas:

• Skills and Methods
• Special Topics

The purpose of this article was to systematically review the play therapy literature examining the effectiveness of child-centered play therapy with the autism spectrum disorder (ASD) population. Child-centered play therapy is shown to be an evidence-based, effective intervention for children; however, a systematic review of child-centered play therapy as an intervention with the ASD population has yet to be conducted. Even though results of the literature review show that child-centered play therapy is promising in increasing social and emotional behaviors of children with ASD, more research is needed to determine whether child-centered play therapy is an efficacious intervention with children with autism spectrum disorder.

Play Therapy Primary Areas:

• Skills and Methods
• Special Topics

The purpose of this qualitative study was to describe the experiences of professional school counselors participating in a play therapy workshop as an introduction to child-centered play therapy (CCPT). Constructivism led this qualitative study to describe six professional school-counselor participants’ perceptions of CCPT and their experiences in attending the play therapy workshop. This article presents a development of the workshop for professional school counselors, findings of this qualitative study, and discussion about implications for practice and research.

Play Therapy Primary Areas:

• Skills and Methods
• Special Topics
  

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of kinder training on young children’s on-task behavior in the classroom. This study utilized an experimental single-case methodology and a multiple baseline across subjects design. Three elementary school teachers conducted weekly individual play sessions with three students they identified as frequently exhibiting off-task behavior. The findings provide support for kinder training as an effective play-based professional development training model that can improve students’ on-task behavior. Results demonstrated that all student participants showed improvement in on-task classroom behavior. Visual analysis revealed that all student participants demonstrated a positive change in on-task behavior during the intervention phase. All teacher participants reported observing improvement in the student participants’ on-task behavior and teacher–student relationships.

Play Therapy Primary Areas:

• Special Topics
  

The number of children diagnosed with autism continues to be on the rise (Hess, 2009),and professionals strive to gain more knowledge concerning treatment. A review of the literature reveals the use of play as 1 type of intervention for children with autism.Although there is a great deal of literature on the behavioral approaches to working with children diagnosed with autism, there is limited research on the use of child-centered play therapy (CCPT). CCPT is an approach that was designed to work with children dealing with a variety of problems. The present study used a phenomenological design to explore the experiences of play therapists utilizing CCPT with children diagnosed with autism. Ten interviews were conducted with Registered Play Therapists and Registered Play Therapist-Supervisors who utilize CCPT with children diagnosed with autism. The data collected through the interviews was organized and analyzed through NVivo software. The data analysis indicated 3 major themes and 8 subthemes. The 10 participants expressed that although there are challenges working with children diagnosed with autism, the benefits were primarily the environment, the therapeutic relationship, and their role as the therapists when utilizing CCPT. The participants found that these aspects of CCPT had the greatest influence in meeting the needs of children diagnosed with autism. Additionally, the therapists experienced the involvement of parents being of greater value with children diagnosed with autism compared with the involvement of parents with other clients.

Play Therapy Primary Areas:

• Skills and Methods
• Special Topics
  

Research shows that a positive relationship between student and teacher has significant positive effects on students’ socio-emotional and behavioral health (Ansari et al., 2020; Chen & Lindo, 2017; Rucinski, 2018; Wang et al., 2016). Research also supports the efficacy of Child-Centered Play Therapy (CCPT) to address children’s socio-emotional and behavioral issues in schools, including CCPT-based interventions like filial therapy and Child-Teacher Relationship Therapy (CTRT), delivered by parents, teachers, and paraprofessionals (Bratton et al., 2005; Van Fleet et al., 2013). CCPT or CTRT training is not always available for teachers and paraprofessionals, especially in economically disadvantaged or rural areas, so researchers and practitioners have developed brief forms of training. Using a pre-test, post-test design, we examined the efficacy of a one-day CTRT training for 34 preschool teachers and paraprofessionals. We evaluated the impact of the brief training on participants’ scores on the Play Therapy Knowledge- Attitudes- and Skills Survey (PTKASS; Kao & Landreth, 1997) by conducting a paired-sample t-test, finding statistically significant improvement and a large effect size for scores on each subscale after participants completed the training. We discuss limits of this pilot study and implications for future research.

Blalock, S. M., Goble, P., & Mozier, K. (2024). Teacher professional development training: Utilizing child-centered play therapy skills in the classroom. International Journal of Play Therapy, 33(1), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1037/pla0000209

Play Therapy Primary Areas:

• Seminal / Historically Significant Theories
• Skills & Methods
• Special Topics