Branch Trainings

Working with parents and caregivers through the play therapy process can be dynamic, challenging, and ultimately transformative for children and their families. Child-Parent Relationship Therapy (CPRT) can anchor play therapists’ work and provide a framework for collaborating effectively with parents and caregivers from intake to termination. CPRT offers play therapists a roadmap for fostering stronger parent-child relationships and strengthening parenting skills and efficacy to promote systemic change and healing. Learn how to integrate CPRT into your play therapy practice intentionally through assessment, CPRT adaptations, and the application of CPRT principles and interventions in parent and caregiver consultations.

This webinar will not provide a comprehensive overview of Child-Parent Relationship Therapy. Prior training and familiarity with CPRT/filial therapy may be helpful for participants.

This presentation will provide clinicians with a broad overview of traditional play therapy and CBT theories and how to flexibly integrate the two approaches into therapy sessions with children ages 7 to 10. Participants will learn how to take CBT concepts and make them playful, creative, and hands-on.

In this interactive workshop, participants will explore the intersection of CCPT values and ethical obligations through experiential activities, case vignettes, and reflective dialogue. Using a child-centered lens with attention to cultural humility and responsiveness, attendees will engage in honest and reflective exploration of the tension that may be felt with mandated reporting, responding ethically to disclosures in the playroom, and communicating with caregivers while maintaining the integrity of the therapeutic relationship (Landreth, 2024; Ray, 2019; Ray, 2022). This session invites participants to explore how to hold both the spirit of CCPT and the weight of legal duty with authenticity, compassion, and ethical clarity.

Play therapists need to be ready to respond when presented with children’s suicidal ideation and intent. This session reviews suicidal risks and warning signs in young children receiving play therapy interventions. Play therapists will learn knowledge and skills to use for targeted and play-based screening and assessment and play therapy intervention for children and their caregivers.

This workshop will begin with a high level overview of using sand in a play therapy session and then move on to exploring the meaning behind symbols children use in play. Participants will learn how to think about symbols used in a child’s sand tray generally and then apply this knowledge to examples from our modern myths like Sesame Street characters, Bluey and popular animated films.

Research shows us that Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) is the most effective treatment for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. ERP involves the client and their parents having to face their fears and engage in very difficult tasks. Play therapy is the perfect compliment to integrate in order to engage and motivate the child and their family members. This training will explore how to use play therapy techniques to help the child make sense of their OCD as well as how to use play therapy to create exposures and rewards. Participants will also be able to share case examples and brainstorm with the group for play therapy exposure ideas.