Working with Children Using Play and Creative Arts Therapy

What Will You Learn?

• Play Therapy is cited as one of the most effective treatments for children suffering from trauma or PTSD; with a number of articles and papers written about its efficacy. This indicates that Play Therapy can be extremely valuable for schools since it can be applied to all children. Play Therapy is a type of therapy used primarily for children (3 – 12 years old). Unlike more commonly known therapies such as Counselling (which is a type of Talk Therapy), Play Therapy does not use ‘talk’ and instead uses a variety of play and creative arts techniques (such as play, toys, art, and sand) to help the child explore, express, and safely experience the difficulties they are working through. The child can explore their thoughts and feelings without having to use words to articulate themselves. Using play, the therapist uncovers insights otherwise unable to be heard and recognized through normal dialogue. There are many studies to show that Play Therapy has helped children with a variety of problems like aggressive or angry behavior, family issues like divorce and death, domestic violence, eating and toileting disorders, ADHD, and Autism (ASD). Also, Play Therapy is cited as one of the most effective treatments for children suffering from trauma or PTSD; with a number of articles and papers written about its efficacy. This indicates that Play Therapy can be extremely valuable for schools since it can be applied to all children.
• The workshop introduces the concept of Play and Creative Arts Therapy and provides a platform for participants to learn practical skills to understand and help the child. At the end of this course, participants will be able to use Play and Creative Arts techniques to uncover insights useful to address the child’s needs.
• This workshop does not qualify participants to be professional play therapist. Rather, it enriches the range of skills that they currently possess. For instance, CBT-trained Counsellors and Psychologist in the audience will be able to integrate the Play and Creative Arts techniques into their ‘toolkit of different therapies’, thus able to offer a holistic approach and bring together different therapeutic methods for a more comprehensive treatment.
• This practical workshop is delivered in a multi-modal format including demonstrations, immersive and experiential learning.