Participants will be exposed to the literature on the neurobiology behind play which will provide a framework for advocating for, and supporting their play therapy practice with parents and other professionals.

Play Therapy Primary Areas:

• Special Topics

This workshop examines the neurobiological components involved in the Sandplay, and how they work to change psychological functioning in the play therapy process.

Learning Objectives:

• Describe the neurological systems activated by work in Sandplay.
• Express the neurological reasons behind the absence of interpretation of the trays to the client.
• Describe how working with the hands in the sand can result in improved language skills.

Play Therapy Primary Areas:

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

The workshop reviews brain structure, organization, integration, and mediation of function. These concepts are essential to play therapists’ clinical interviews identifying cognitive, emotional, and physiological symptomatology. This process is crucial to the formation of sequentially appropriate, trauma informed treatment plans.

Learning Objectives:

• Define key neurobiological concepts critical to play therapy work.
• List functional indicators of children suffering from social emotional maltreatment.
• List key neurobiological concepts critical to intervention design.
• Identify important developmental play and attachment activities impacting specific brain regions.
• Describe brain region activities appropriate for play therapy and a therapeutic web of treatment.
• Develop a play therapy protocol listing dosing, social ratios, and play activities for therapists, family, and community partners.

Play Therapy Primary Areas:

• Special Topics

*Supervision Training

Registered Play Therapy-Supervisors are faced with challenges or ethical gray areas on a daily basis. RPT-S's may be balancing multiple roles and responsibilities, such as licensing supervisor, administrative supervisors and play therapy supervisor.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify areas for potential conflicts in play therapy supervision.
• Demonstrate ability to use an ethical decision making model while providing play therapy supervision.
• Apply the play therapy developmental framework for supervision.

Play Therapy Primary Areas:

• Special Topics

This interactive workshop allows play therapists to expand their knowledge about multicultural play therapy. The workshop provides supportive structure for self-reflection on multicultural play therapy. Shared experience and research will support the participants' multicultural practice with children and families.

Learning Objectives:

• Describe how their own cultural background may impact their views of play, play therapy, and the populations they serve.
• Describe at least 3 examples of how culture may impact help-seeking behaviors as well as investment in play therapy.
• Apply at least 3 practical strategies to create a playroom and play therapy experience that is inviting and appropriate for a multi-cultural setting.

Play Therapy Primary Areas:

• Special Topics

This workshop provides an overview of the Kids in Court program at the Chadwick Center, and gives participants play therapy intervention ideas for how to educate and support children who will be testifying in court.

Learning Objectives:

• Describe at least three common fears and anxieties associated with the testifying experience.
• Describe the basic elements of Trauma Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and its application to court preparation.
• Demonstrate at least 2 play therapy interventions to effectively prepare children and teens to testify with a greater sense of empowerment.

Play Therapy Primary Areas:

• Special Topics

Learn how to use play therapy to increase felt safety within a family, work with attachment anxiety within a dyad, craft coherent narratives of hard things, and help parents and children become a team to fight trauma based anxiety together.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify two patterns of "miscuing" that occur in dyads with less secure attachment.
• Describe three Theraplay activities that can help parents and children practice more accurate cuing patterns in relationship.
• Identify three play therapy techniques, grounded in expressive arts, that can help children and their caregivers create trauma narratives.
• Describe two expressive arts activity that can help parents in therapy/ clinicians in supervision reflect on their own attachment history.
• List three criteria to use when assessing whether or not a parent is currently a safe enough container to hold the child's trauma narrative
• Describe the six co-regulation strategies encoded in the acronym SOOTHE

This training is NOT eligible for supervisor training hours.

Play Therapy Primary Areas:

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

Working with teens and tweens can be a challenge! We will share our Top 12 Creative Play Therapy Interventions for working with some of the most common challenges for troubled teens and teens. Come prepared to play!

Learning Objectives:

• Discuss four common challenges facing teens and tweens.
• Utilize one appropriate creative intervention for each challenge discussed facing teens and tweens.
• Demonstrate four creative play therapy interventions for teens and tweens.

Play Therapy Primary Areas:

• Special Topics

Learn to navigate the challenges of school settings while using play therapy to build social skills and coping strategies in children. Participants will practice techniques and work within metaphors, before leaving energized and ready to engage in new, creative ways.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify a time and space where small group and individual counseling can happen in a school setting.
• Articulate to parents, teachers and school administrators the concept of metaphors as they apply to play therapy.
• Demonstrate two play therapy techniques to be used with small groups in a school setting.

Play Therapy Primary Areas:

• Special Topics

Using play therapy in family assessments welcomes children, as well as their parents, into the therapeutic relationship. Play therapy interventions will be introduced to look specifically at the family dynamics of hierarchy, power and control, boundaries and alliances.

Learning Objectives:

• Discuss why play therapy is important in the assessment phase of family therapy.
• Discuss hierarchy in the family setting.
• Demonstrate at least 3 play therapy interventions that can be used in the assessment phase of family therapy.

Play Therapy Primary Areas:

• Special Topics