Part 1 Child Centered Play Therapy: A Trauma-Informed Approach for Working with Children & Part 2 The Power of Child Centered Play Therapy: Helping Children Connect and Heal
Presentation Overview:Children experience trauma at alarming rates and these experiences impact their physical, mental, social, and academic health. It is vital that clinicians understand the impacts of these experiences as well as evidenced based and neurobiologically informed interventions to assist children within clinics, schools, agencies, and families. CCPT has a long-standing history of research that offers evidence of effectiveness (Lin & Bratton, 2015; Ray et al., 2015); and demonstrates positive outcomes for children's externalizing and internalizing behaviors, academic achievement, and relationships. Furthermore, recent research by Ray et al. (2022) demonstrates CCPT is an effective intervention to improve social-emotional competency, self-regulation, and decrease behavioral problems among children with early adversity.Within this presentation, participants will explore the various ways in which childhood experiences can be traumatic and how Child Centered Play Therapy (CCPT) can assist children in healing from these experiences. Presenters will engage in small group activities and lectures to assist participants in better understanding the intentionality and neurobiological implications of using CCPT with children who experienced trauma.
Children's emotional development far outpaces their verbal development, and so they experience intense emotions long before they are able to fully verbalize them. This produces obstacles for adults and counselors attempting to understand children's experiences and difficulties. When we rely on verbal communication with children, we limit their ability to fully communicate with us. Instead, counselors can use play, children's natural medium of expression, to provide a space for children to process their inner world and the world around them, as well as move toward self-enhancing behaviors. Child-Centered Play Therapy (CCPT) is a developmentally responsive, evidence-based counseling approach to help children move toward self-enhancing behaviors and ways of being. In this workshop, we will present the nuts and bolts of CCPT. This introductory workshop will focus on the rationale and overview of CCPT, CCPT play therapy skills, how to develop a healing and therapeutic relationship with children, and using CCPT in treatment planning/goals. SpeakersKristie K. Opiola Kristie K. Opiola(she/hers), PhD, LCMHC, RPT, CCPT-S, CPRT-S, is an Associate Professor for the Counseling Department at UNC Charlotte, where she teaches play therapy classes and directs the Multicultural Play Therapy Center and Annual Multicultural Play Therapy Conference. Clinically, Kristie is a child-centered play therapist who believes in the healing powers of relationships in her work with children, adolescents, adults and families whose lives are touched by trauma. Amy Work
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