Care services
Play therapist
Work to improve children’s mental health, emotional well-being, learning capabilities and social relationships.
Summary
This occupation is found in Education and Social care settings. Play Therapists work in a range of settings such as primary schools, early years centres, sure start centres, child and adolescent, mental health services, voluntary, private sector or organisations concerned with children’s welfare.
The broad purpose of the occupation is the employee will work to improve children’s mental health, emotional well-being, learning capabilities and social relationships. The aim is to enable their full potential by using therapeutic play and a wide range of media and resources. These include sand worlds, clay, puppets, masks, creative visualisations, dressing up, role play, games, messy play, water, drawing and painting and therapeutic stories written for individual children. Play therapy is used both as a long-term intervention for healing chronic issues and as a short term one to prevent slight/mild problems developing into more serious ones.
Play therapy is essentially a non-talking therapy because children very often either cannot or do not want to talk about their problems, which may include traumatic experiences.
Working within the legal and ethical requirements of a Play Therapist alleviating children's mental health, emotional and behaviour issues and keeping them safe. The employee will comply with the standards of the Professional Standards Authority Accredited (PSA) Register of Play and Creative Arts Therapists managed by Play Therapy UK. The employee in this occupation works within parameters of safeguarding legislation to protect children from harm (all types of abuse) responding to disclosures as defined within legislation. In their daily work, Play Therapists interact and work with parents/carers and professionals concerned with children's welfare.
Play Therapists are responsible for alleviating children's mental health, emotional and behaviour issues and keeping them safe. They use a holistic model which integrates: working with the unconscious mind which comprises mental processes that are inaccessible to consciousness but that influence judgements, feelings, or behaviour; the preconscious mind which contains thoughts and feelings that a child is not currently aware of, but which can easily be brought to consciousness as it exists just below the level of consciousness; as well as the conscious mind, which consists of all the mental processes of which we are aware; direct approaches where the Play Therapist prescribes the activities that the child undertakes in the sessions (less common); and indirect approaches where the child themselves chooses what to do (more common)
The therapist communicates with the child using the media that the child has chosen. The therapist also bases the therapy on how the child presents i.e. their behaviour at the start of and during the session e.g. angry, sad, shy, utilising what the child brings to the sessions with the child leading the process rather than 'doing therapy' to the child. The Integrative Holistic model of play therapy is validated by a substantial practice evidence base proving that it is highly effective for helping children to overcome their problems.
It is used successfully with a wide range of children's presenting conditions including, but not limited to: suffering from traumatic experiences, lack of engagement, language difficulties (elective mutes), learning disabilities, family and social relationship difficulties; anger management; attachment issues; all categories of abuse; lack of self-esteem; anxiety disorder; bereavement and loss; experience of domestic violence; lack of confidence; autistic disorder; anti-social behaviour; Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD: a persistent pattern of inattention and/or hyperactivity-impulsivity that is more frequently displayed and is more severe than is typically observed in individuals at comparable level of development); adjustment problems and bullying.
Typical job titles include
- Accredited play therapist | Certified play therapist | Practitioners in therapeutic play skills
Knowledge, skills and behaviours (KSBs)
K1:
What is required of a play therapist by the Professional Standards Authority (PSA), government and professional bodies
K2:
The importance of play and attachment theory in child and adolescent development and its role in play therapy
K3:
What is required to be fit for play therapy practice taking into consideration physical and mental health and social factors
K4:
How to manage the equipment used in play therapy practice to ensure that it meets the needs of the children irrespective of their physical developmental needs
K5:
Psychopharmacology for working with children receiving play therapy
K6:
Requirements to manage a playroom/ play space for therapeutic uses
K7:
The workings of and the relevant components of children's brains, and how the mind is created and changed
K8:
The Integrative Holistic model of Play Therapy for children who have mental health and emotional well-being issues not exclusive to trauma, loss, neglect, abuse, anxiety, relationship issues
K9:
How to use a wide range of therapeutic activities including creative arts media for play therapy purposes
K10:
Indirect and direct play therapy modalities, as appropriate with individual and with groups of children to build positive relationship with the child
K11:
Effective and efficient referral procedures for play therapy
K12:
Research relating to the efficacy, effectiveness and efficiency of children's mental health and emotional well-being of play therapy interventions
K13:
Physical safety risks and how to mitigate them in play therapy practice
K14:
How to respond therapeutically to a client when the client plays and moves within the 4 quadrants of the Play Therapy Dimensions Model
K15:
What is required to work ethically with clients
K16:
The importance of therapeutic boundaries within clinical working
K17:
How attachment and child development theories are related to play therapy practice
K18:
How to record, process and store sensitive data in-line with GDPR
K19:
Effective reporting with stakeholders, parents and professionals identifying the on-going needs of the child.
Technical Educational Products
- ST0905: Play therapist (Level 7) Approved for delivery
- Reference:
- OCC0905
- Status:
Approved occupation
- Average (median) salary:
- £34,500 per year
- SOC 2020 code:
- 2229 Therapy professionals n.e.c.
- SOC 2020 sub unit groups:
- 2229/08 Play therapists
S1:
Apply in practice play in child development with children and early adolescents
S2:
Identify, acquire and manage the safe use of materials and equipment for use in the playroom for therapeutic purposes these are: paper, art materials, clay, sand, sand trays with symbols, musical instruments, puppets, dressing-up clothes, water, movements items, this is an example of the minimum therapeutic media required which would be adapted to meet the physical needs of the children
S3:
Recognise personal issues that arise as a result of sessions with children, clinical supervision and training; takes actions such as personal therapy or CPD to deal with these
S4:
Apply neurobiology to work with children in observation, assessment, during sessions and reporting upon clinical outcomes
S5:
Manages the consultation process through interview and discussion skills, adequate assessment of client needs, obtaining consent, agreeing a therapy contract including therapeutic objectives or making a referral to another professional concerned with children’s well-being if the case is outside their competence or resources
S6:
Make clinical assessments using psychometric tools such as the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ)
S7:
Applies a theoretical framework to play therapy practice including child development and attachment theory
S8:
Use the Integrative Holistic Model of Play Therpay: therapeutic stories, clay, role play, drawing and painting, puppets, games, sand-play, music, movement, creative visualisations, masks, dressing up, blocks/lego, water, messy play, relaxation
S9:
Decide and practice when to work indirectly or directly, and with unconscious or conscious processes using the Play Therapy Dimensions Model as a guide to session activities
S10:
Plan and use play therapy for groups of children
S11:
Establish, agree and enforce boundaries to keep the children safe
S12:
Respond to different children’s behaviours such as aggressive/acting out or passive children in play therapy sessions
S13:
Assess and deliver play therapy interventions with a variety of conditions on a spectrum of needs from low risk to high risk as measured by the SDQ and other factors
S14:
Apply ethical principles to ensure personal safety within individual or group play therapy sessions.
S15:
Manages the handling of sensitive clinical data in practice
S16:
Ability to effectively communicate to stakeholders, parents and professionals identifying the on-going needs of the child
Technical Educational Products
- ST0905: Play therapist (Level 7) Approved for delivery
- Reference:
- OCC0905
- Status:
- Approved occupation
- Average (median) salary:
- £34,500 per year
- SOC 2020 code:
- 2229 Therapy professionals n.e.c.
- SOC 2020 sub unit groups:
- 2229/08 Play therapists
B1:
Integrity and coherent in dealings with others
B2:
Demonstrate at all times a personal commitment consistent in their approach
B3:
Demonstrate empathy through communicating and understanding of another person's experience from that person's perspective (including the children's)
B4:
Resilient through having the capacity to work with parents' and children’s concerns without being personally diminished
B5:
Ability to make decisions in the best interest of the child when needing to refer to others
B6:
Demonstrate how to apply appropriate criteria to inform decisions and actions regardless of personal views without discrimination
B7:
Show compassion through kindness, consideration, dignity, empathy and respect
B8:
Respect confidentiality of the child and parents, recognising the differences between a therapeutic role as compared to eg a teaching role
Technical Educational Products
- ST0905: Play therapist (Level 7) Approved for delivery
- Reference:
- OCC0905
- Status:
- Approved occupation
- Average (median) salary:
- £34,500 per year
- SOC 2020 code:
- 2229 Therapy professionals n.e.c.
- SOC 2020 sub unit groups:
- 2229/08 Play therapists