Taking Partners in Play to School

In 2021, the Centers for Disease Control identified 17.4% of U.S. children aged 2-8 as being diagnosed with a mental, behavioral, or developmental disorder.  Many of these youth attend school for 6-7 hours each day, making the school setting an ideal location to provide social, emotional, and behavioral learning (SEBL) support and services. Counselors, due to extensive duties and overwhelming caseloads, often struggle to take advantage of the captive audience walking the school hallways.  Adlerian play therapy (AdPT), structured in four (4) non-linear phases, allows school counselors and school-based therapists to get the “biggest bang for their buck.”  Using the AdPT phases of building an egalitarian relationship, exploring a student’s lifestyle, gaining insight and self-awareness, and aiding in reorientation and re-education allows school- based team members to cultivate students’ SEBL both in and out of the playroom.  School counselors/school-based therapists can maximize connection with students outside the playroom by implementing AdPT techniques such as encouragement, metacommunication, and limit-setting.  These skills can promote healthy student development in areas including, but not limited to, self-regulation, self-discipline, cooperation, mutual respect, and responsibility.  When applying AdPT skills school-wide, school based personnel can become "Encouragement Agents," providing students in need with a “double dose” of support, while also taking a proactive approach to providing support to all students’ healthy SEBL.

This program is designed for play therapists currently or planning to work in the school setting.  The skills taught in this program will build upon a basic knowledge of play therapy.  

4 Live Webinar CE hours (Non-Contact)  (Includes 1 hour Special Topics, 1 hour Play Therapy Seminal or Historically Significant Theories, 2 hours on Play Therapy Skills and Methods, etc.) This workshop meets APT's definition of "Live Webinar."

APT Approved Provider 99-055

League of Extraordinary Adlerian Play Therapists (LEAPT) has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 7402. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. League of Extraordinary Adlerian Play Therapists (LEAPT) is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs.

By the end of the workshop participants will be able to:

1. Describe the Adlerian play therapy concepts of Crucial Cs, personality priorities, and temperament. 

2. Describe ways Adlerian play therapy concepts can be utilized in common areas of the school (hallways, lunchroom, arrival/dismissal).

3. Demonstrate the use of the Adlerian play therapy techniques of encouragement, metacommunication, and limit-setting with students.

4. Prepare school-wide teams to incorporate the basic tenets of play therapy in order to become Encouragement Agents within the school setting.