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Family Play Therapy: Why Treating Just the Child Limits Outcomes · Next Level Play Therapy: A Podcast for Play Therapy Excellence

• 0:02
  Welcome to Next Level Play Therapy, a weekly podcast dedicated to supporting the next generation of child and adolescent therapists to provide exceptional play therapy services.
• 0:14
  We'll explore all things play therapy to elevate your work with children and adolescents using the therapeutic powers of play.
• 0:23
  I'll discuss practical tips and ideas so you can provide a transformative experience for your young clients and make a real difference in their lives.
• 0:33
  So get ready to take your play therapy skills to the next level and make a lasting impact in the lives of children, adolescents, and families.
• 0:48
  Hey there.
• 0:49
  Welcome to this week's episode of Next Level Play Therapy.
• 0:54
  I go live every week and talk about all things play therapy, and today we are talking about family play therapy.
• 1:04
  And if you're a child and adoles- or a child therapist or maybe a play therapist or maybe a child and adolescent play therapist, and you're meeting with parents kind of here and there, or maybe you're only doing those, like, five-minute, but they're never five-minute, check-ins at the end of the session, or maybe you're touching base in between the sessions, then this week's episode is for you.
• 1:31
  Today, what we're talking about is individual play therapy is really powerful, but there's a point at which sometimes it's not enough, and the work that you're doing in that playroom is not translating to home, and you're not seeing the sustainable changes.
• 1:54
  And you know that because you feel like you've hit a plateau.
• 1:59
  You're hearing parents kind of say nothing's really changing.
• 2:04
  When you ask them, are they, are they implementing those suggestions that you've made, they say yes, and nothing's working.
• 2:14
  And silently in your head, you're thinking, "Did you really do what we talked about?
• 2:18
  Did you do it more than once?
• 2:23
  Did you quit and stop after the first time it got hard?" Maybe they are, but the likelihood it's getting implemented or you're missing something in the dynamics of what's going on outside of your office is very, very high.
• 2:43
  And to me, that's where play- individual play therapy has a tendency to hit a ceiling.
• 2:51
  Because if the family system is not changed, what you're doing is sending children back into an unchanged family system week after week after week after week, so that those changes that they're making in the playroom don't seem to be sustained outside of the playroom.
• 3:14
  And so in this week's episode, what we're gonna talk about is where individual play therapy only kind of runs out of room.
• 3:25
  When the family system is not changed, then progress can feel stalled or slowed, no matter how skilled you are in play therapy.
• 3:36
  I find this happening to me, that, like, I'll be working with a client and we're in the playroom and things seem to be going fine in the playroom, but then I'm getting phone calls or, um, parents are telling me, you know, all the things that are going on at home or in school, and there seems to be a disconnect.
• 4:00
  Or when you're working, or when you're working with parents who are no longer together, so maybe they're separated or divorced or maybe they were never together, but they're, they, um, have a child that they're co-parenting and you hear one parent say,"It's working fine. Nothing's wrong," and the other parent is talking about all the things that aren't going right, and in the playroom you're seeing something completely different.
• 4:27
  And so to me, this is where individual play therapy Kind of runs out of room, so to speak.
• 4:37
  And we're all g- also gonna talk about what happens, what changes when the family gets in through the room.
• 4:44
  I know sometimes in my work with a lot of child and adolescent therapists over the years, when I have talked to them about family play therapy, they, they have a tendency to look like the deer in the headlights, where they're like, "Ah, that's too many people in one room," and they think of all the things that can go wrong.
• 5:04
  But here's… And those can happen, and we are going to talk about how do you know if having the family in the playroom, or having the parent in the playroom, or having different parts of the family in the playroom, we're gonna talk about how do you know if that's not really a good idea.
• 5:25
  The thing is, when you include parents or family in the playroom, then you get to see those relational patterns in real time.
• 5:33
  You get to see what's going on, who does what, how do they do it, and you get to create that change in real time in those relationships.
• 5:45
  So we're gonna talk about that, and we're also gonna talk about why you want to have a plan or a strategic framework or approach when you add family members into the playroom.
• 5:59
  So that is what we're talking about today.
• 6:04
  If you are watching live on LinkedIn or YouTube, then feel free to join the conversations.
• 6:11
  I would love to hear what you w- what you're seeing in the playroom, how you're, um, managing that work with parents.
• 6:20
  Are you doing individual play therapy only?
• 6:24
  Are you doing family play therapy?
• 6:26
  Are you adding parents into the playroom?
• 6:28
  How is that working?
• 6:30
  So feel free to join the conversation.
• 6:32
  If you're watching the replay on LinkedIn or YouTube, feel free to join the conversation as well.
• 6:39
  Post where you're from, what population you work with.
• 6:44
  Um, awesome.
• 6:47
  We have Angel from Manitoba, Canada.
• 6:50
  Welcome.
• 6:51
  That's awesome.
• 6:53
  So, um, all righty.
• 6:57
  So let's go ahead and get started.
• 7:00
  And again, feel free to post in the comments.
• 7:02
  If you are wa- uh, listening on, from the, um, podcast, then feel free to follow me over on Instagram at Renewing Hearts Training.
• 7:17
  Join the conversation over there.
• 7:19
  Send me a message, and I would love to know your thoughts.
• 7:23
  If you're listening on the podcast, I would love it if you would leave a review in Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
• 7:33
  What's been helpful?
• 7:35
  Feel free to suggest other topics as well.
• 7:38
  And if you're watching on YouTube, feel free to subscribe and hit that notification bell so that you get know every time when I go live, which I go live every week.
• 7:50
  So let's see.
• 7:52
  We have a con- a comment also from Angel.
• 7:55
  Doing individual play therapy for most sessions, but have included parents sometimes.
• 8:02
  I hear that a lot actually, and in Play Therapy Academy, and now I started another membership for people that don't really need that higher level of skill-building or maybe not ready for it.
• 8:16
  That's, um… I've started another membership, Play Therapy Elevation Circle.
• 8:22
  We have these conversations all the time about parents.
• 8:26
  In fact, we had this conversation last m- uh, last week in one of our, our consultation calls.
• 8:33
  How, how does that w- how, you know, how do we work with parents?
• 8:38
  What happens when we bring parents into the playroom?
• 8:42
  So this topic comes up a lot in our, uh, my membership programs, which is why I thought it would be a good topic to discuss here in the live stream and podcast episodes.
• 8:57
  So the first thing, um, we wanna talk about is- Where the ceiling shows up in individual play therapy only and why it doesn't always, um, create sustainable and lasting change.
• 9:20
  So what happens is when you're only doing individual play therapy, and maybe you're just counting on those five-minute check-ins at the end of the session or the beginning of the session, which I am not a big fan of, and if you have listened to any of my previous episodes, or for those of you who are in Play Therapy Academy or Elevation Circle, you have heard me say this a lot when we have our conversations in there.
• 9:49
  Um, what happens is you are relying only on parent report, so you're only getting their perspective of what's going on and, um, their understanding of it through the lens of their stress and the meaning that they've made out of the problem.
• 10:12
  And then you're not really seeing for yourself in real time what are those interaction patterns between the child and the family members.
• 10:23
  So you might even be treating a symptom that doesn't really exist.
• 10:27
  So for example, this happens a lot And, uh, I, I see this a lot.
• 10:34
  It- we also talk a lot a- about it a lot in Play Therapy Academy and Play Therapy Elevation Circle in our consultation meetings in there, in our book club meetings, our round table discussions in there.
• 10:48
  What, what ends up happening is parents will say things like, "Oh, you know, he's disrespectful, he's always arguing, he's argumentative, and he doesn't do what he's supposed to do. And I have to ask him over and over and over, and then he gets mad and leaves." And that might all be true, but the part that's not… You're not, you're not necessarily getting the child's observation or experience of those interactions.
• 11:19
  And so we know that relationships are dynamic, meaning they in- they influence each other.
• 11:27
  One person does one thing, other person makes meaning out of that, and then responds based on that meaning, and then that other person makes meaning out of that response, and then responds.
• 11:40
  And then they have this pattern of this dynamic that they get into over and over, and now it's become entrenched.
• 11:48
  And so y- if you're only getting that report from parents, you don't get to see that dynamic in real time, and maybe where there's some shifts that need to happen on the parents' side Maybe the way they approach the situation isn't necessarily how they intended to, but that's how it's experienced.
• 12:18
  But you're not gonna know that if you're just doing parent report.
• 12:24
  You're not gonna see that dynamic in real time.
• 12:27
  Or parents are saying the siblings are arguing all the time, and their fear is that they're not gonna have any relationships, and that they're gonna hate each other.
• 12:38
  And then you do a family play therapy session, and you see a lot more positive things in there and that than parents are seeing because you're getting the report based on the meaning that they're making out of what's going on.
• 12:56
  You also don't get to see those dynamics between siblings in terms of, you know, how they're responding to different situations going on in the family system.
• 13:09
  And so then what happens is what you're working on in the playroom doesn't always get translated into the family system.
• 13:20
  Sometimes it does, but sometimes it doesn't.
• 13:24
  And then th- that's when I start thinking about, what is the dynamic going on within the home?
• 13:32
  And the parent might be doing all the, the, all the things they know to do.
• 13:37
  They might be really, really invested.
• 13:41
  The problem is they don't know what they don't know, and you don't know what you don't know until you see it.
• 13:49
  And to me this is also where having a community of play therapists to kinda think alongside you can be very helpful because as a play therapist, you don't know what you don't know, and you can't see what you don't see unless you get that support.
• 14:05
  So I feel like in play therapy, one of the things that we don't do a lot is, one, we miss out on some of the benefits of family play therapy And we also miss out on some of that support that we can get from our own community of support.
• 14:27
  So we get other play therapists who speak our language to help us see what's going on.
• 14:34
  Then we come up with a plan, and then maybe we're gonna work on family play therapy.
• 14:41
  But we wanna have a plan and maybe understand a little bit about what's going on.
• 14:46
  And here's the thing.
• 14:47
  We can't help parents learn it if we're not really seeing the full picture ourselves.
• 14:53
  So when we invite them into the playroom, then, um, we wanna make sure we have a plan, which we're gonna talk a little bit more about that.
• 15:02
  And also, are we seeing everything we can see so we can help parents see everything they need to see, and maybe think about ways to, to help parents kind of understand better and learn the skills?
• 15:20
  And so what happens… The other thing that happens when you're having those, um, only doing the individual sessions, for those of you who have a very full caseload, I hear this a lot too.
• 15:33
  We talk about this a lot in Play Therapy Academy, which, and which is "My schedule's really full.
• 15:41
  I don't know where I can fit a parent-only session in," or, "I'm getting all these phone calls from parents," or,"I'm getting these texts in between and I'm responding." And so when we're only doing, when we're only doing par- individual play therapy sessions, at- then we're kind of trying to figure out how to add all the other things in there as well.
• 16:07
  Whereas if we did family play therapy sessions, we get a whole lot of information all in one session.
• 16:15
  I'm gonna check the comments here.
• 16:18
  Um, yes.
• 16:19
  Oh, Angel says, "I have a kiddo with ODD and mom struggles with her own self-regulation, which escalates the child.
• 16:28
  She's now in her own therapy, and how do I know when she's ready to enter the playroom?
• 16:32
  I've been coaching her on the side." That's a great question.
• 16:39
  Um, I've, I actually went into that in a little more depth last week.
• 16:47
  It… So you may wanna listen to last week's episode, or you're watching on l- um, on the l- uh, YouTube, so you can go into the live section on my YouTube channel, and you could see some of the previous episodes.
• 17:01
  But I'll talk a little bit about that as well here.
• 17:04
  How do you know?
• 17:06
  Um, but I go a little m- more in depth in the previous episode.
• 17:10
  That's a great question.
• 17:11
  This one comes up all the time, and you, what you mentioned, we all see that on our caseloads.
• 17:19
  And the reason that I know that is 'cause we talk about it all the time in Play Therapy Academy.
• 17:26
  And in… We just had this conversation last week in the consultation call for Elevation Circle.
• 17:33
  And, and the other thing is we have a monthly book club in Elevation Circle, and this month we're gonna read an article about high-conflict divorce, because that's another area where we see these dynamics show up, where individual isn't alway- individual play therapy isn't always moving the needle either.
• 17:55
  But working with divorced families is a whole nother framework when you're adding them in the playroom.
• 18:03
  Um- And so here's the thing that changes when we do family play therapy.
• 18:11
  When you do family play therapy sessions, think about it in terms of, um, you can add parts of the family system in there in the playroom, meaning it could be, like, mom only or dad only, or mom and siblings, or just siblings.
• 18:31
  I've done family play therapy sessions just with the siblings.
• 18:36
  I do that a lot in divorced family systems or family systems where there's been some trauma, and they're… the kind of the family is having to navigate that.
• 18:47
  And so some of the benefit of using family play therapy are that you get to observe those relationship dynamics in real time instead of getting that secondhand information.
• 19:03
  You can coach parents if you have parents in there or caregivers, a foster parent, or maybe another family member is in that caregiving role'cause parent isn't able to parent right now for various and sundry reasons, so maybe it's another caretaker or a caregiver in that role, you can do some coaching in real time, and you can also model when you have the parents in there.
• 19:35
  Also, you can, you can see how the parents are engaging.
• 19:40
  You can see how the children are responding, who's responding, how, who's not responding, who's doing what, who's engaging, who's not engaging, h- and then how is the parent or the caregiver managing all of that because they have to do it at home.
• 19:57
  So I, I like seeing how they do it in the session so I get a better sense of those relationship patterns, and I know how to best support parents.
• 20:09
  Because when we're including parents in the play therapy process, we're supporting them as well.
• 20:16
  We need to give them the support that they need just like we need to get the support that we need in order to help that child make those shifts.
• 20:27
  And so what happens is when you, when you can include parents or family sis- uh, the family in the play therapy session, then you're facilitating that change in real time right there in your play therapy session.
• 20:43
  And then y- then you're… The, the goal then is, because you're making those shifts in the play therapy session, you're creating those changes in real time, now they can take what they've learned and those different ways of experiencing each other outside of the playroom, and the parent is now learning the skills to be able to be the one helping to create those shifts in the child's environment in the home Um, Angel says, "Yep, there's a di- Yep, there's a divorce in process too for that family." Yeah, that, that ma- that adds another layer to the, um, dynamic for sure, which is one of the reasons in Elevation Circle this month, uh, in October, is we're gonna focus a little bit more on, um, like divorce dynamics, a high-conflict divorce dynamic versus, I'll call it for lack of a better word, uh, regular divorce dynamics.
• 21:58
  In fact, I'm actually doing a workshop on this.
• 22:01
  I have a… My co-facilitator and I are doing a workshop on this at the Association for Play Therapy conference coming up this, um, in October.
• 22:11
  Super excited about that.
• 22:13
  When you feel stuck in the middle as a play therapist, we're gonna be teaching about that at the workshop.
• 22:19
  Fo- so any of you guys who are attending the October Association for Play Therapy conference in Minneapolis, make sure to say hi.
• 22:30
  Also, if you're interested, uh, um, the Association for Play Therapy always records.
• 22:35
  They're gonna record our session, and you can always purchase the recordings after the fact if you want to.
• 22:42
  I think they're audio recordings Um, so that brings us to the next question, which is also what Angel brought up, which is how do I know when to bring them in, but how do I also know when it's not a good fit?
• 22:58
  So, um, there are some things you wanna look for, which is, is the parent receptive to doing the, uh, play therapy sessions with their child?
• 23:12
  You have to get their buy-in first.
• 23:14
  And are they also willing to self-reflect so that they're receptive to some of your feedback?
• 23:22
  They do need to trust you because they're gonna rely on you in those family play therapy sessions.
• 23:31
  How do you know when, um, when it's not gonna work?
• 23:36
  I would say more often than not, family play therapy sessions are very effective.
• 23:42
  There are times when it's not, and here are some things that you definitely wanna look for.
• 23:47
  Like, for example, sometimes the parent or the caregiver is not available, or they're not able to participate, maybe because they're sick or maybe dealing with a chronic illness, meaning, you know, some pretty debilitating illness like, uh, cancer or something else, or maybe the parent is no longer living, or maybe the child is in foster care.
• 24:15
  The other thing that you're gonna look for is if there's an active, um, unstable mental health illness going on.
• 24:25
  So maybe if that, the parent's mental illness is not stable, meaning maybe they're in active psychosis, or they're not managing their meds well, or maybe they're just a parent… Maybe there's been a lot of trauma in the family, and the, and the parent's own trauma hasn't been stabilized, so that in the session their trauma gets activated, and maybe they dissociate a lot.
• 24:54
  The, the, the whole point of the family play therapy sessions, especially when you have the caregiver in there, is to help the caregiver become that therapeutic agent of change.
• 25:05
  S- And y- they're gonna use your support, so they don't have to do it alone.
• 25:10
  Just like you wanna make sure you have support as a play therapist, having a, a community of play therapists who get it, who speak your language, you wanna make sure you have that support.
• 25:24
  You… And so then you're also that support for parents, and they need to be able to s- you know, be fully present in the sessions.
• 25:34
  And so if there's an active addiction, you don't want to include them until their addiction is stable, and that could be part of the family recovery Um, but the whole point of this is it needs, there needs to be a safe en- uh, environment in the playroom, so the parent needs to be able to, needs to be able to do that, and with your support.
• 26:00
  The other, the other time that I end up not including parents is when parents just aren't willing to do some of that self-reflection and look at some of their own role in what's going on, and use that session to repair some of that attachment rupture in the relationship.
• 26:24
  If they're not willing to do that, then it doesn't make any sense to include them, since that's the point of the… That's, you know, that's the purpose, is to repair any of those attachment ruptures, and to help parents learn co-regulation, and learn how to do that with their child, and learn how to their chi- how to have that child use that parent for support, because that's the thing that you want them to do outside of the play therapy session.
• 27:01
  The other thing is, since we're talking about divorce, I don't inc- if parents are divorced in a family play therapy session, I, the way that I do it, I don't have both parents in the family play therapy session.
• 27:17
  I will do family play therapy sessions by home, so to speak.
• 27:22
  So, um, each parent, like one, like mom and the kids, or dad and the kids.
• 27:32
  So I don't have mom and dad or, you know, mo- both moms or both dads.
• 27:37
  I don't have them both in the session if they're divorcing, because the family is learning how to live in two separate homes now, and so it's kind of expanded, and they need to navigate those homes and the dynamics, and then the parents need to be able to navigate those transitions between the two homes.
• 28:01
  But that would be another time I would make a different decision about who's in the playroom regarding parents.
• 28:09
  Because the other thing is kids, a lot of kids have this, um, secret fantasy of parents getting back together.
• 28:18
  So if parents are both in the session together, sometimes we're reinforcing s- something that is not going to happen.
• 28:28
  And so we want to help the child adjust to the reality of the new family system that's across two households instead of being in the same household.
• 28:41
  And here's the thing, your play therapy model matters.
• 28:45
  You don't wanna just include parents in there.
• 28:48
  One of the things that we talk about a lot in Play Therapy Academy and Play Therapy Elevation Circle is, um, play therapists or child therapists have a tendency to, parent wants to come in the room, so they say yes, but there's no plan, there's no purpose.
• 29:07
  Nobody knows what we're doing in there.
• 29:10
  Um, or you include parents because the child asked, and the parent doesn't know their role, and you don't know their role.
• 29:20
  And so, um, and sometimes you just feel like you're supposed to, so you include them in the sessions What ends up happening is somewhere pretty quickly, there's a lot of confusion.
• 29:38
  It feels weird, um, 'cause nobody really knows what's going on, it's kind of awkward.
• 29:45
  You feel like you have to prove to parents that this is working or justify what you're doing, and so the focus is on that rather than on the real clinical issues in there that you're trying to help the family address.
• 30:02
  So you wanna make sure you have a play therapy model that you're following.
• 30:07
  Just inviting parents into the playroom isn't enough to really create that change.
• 30:15
  Having that strategic family play therapy framework is what turns everybody's in, in the room now into that real lasting change to get those outcomes that you wanna help your client accomplish.
• 30:33
  You want to help them do that deeper level healing.
• 30:36
  So in order to do that, you need a framework.
• 30:40
  And so some s- s- so sometimes the question is, um, well, is one better than the other?
• 30:49
  Can we do both?
• 30:50
  Uh, I, I don't think one is better than the other.
• 30:54
  I think this is where your clinical decision-making comes in.
• 30:57
  I think this is also where your play therapy framework comes in.
• 31:01
  What model are you using and what does your model say to do?
• 31:06
  And your clinical decision-making.
• 31:11
  How are you figuring out what needs to happen?
• 31:16
  A lot of times what happens is we figure it out because we'll be doing individual play therapy sessions, and we- maybe we're doing that for, like, four or five months, and it feels like things have plateaued and nothing seems to be changing or maybe you're, you're seven or eight months in and feeling like you're second guessing yourself, is play therapy even working?
• 31:40
  Parents are still calling you or sending you texts or email saying all the things that are going wrong, and you're relying on their self-report, and you're n- you're not seeing the whole picture.
• 31:51
  And so sometimes, usually what I'll do is I'll start with individual play therapy sessions so I can get to know the child a little bit I'm also meeting with parents in parent only sessions so I can get the, to know the parents better.
• 32:08
  This is also where I'm beginning to teach them those attachment-based parenting skills.
• 32:14
  I'm building trust with them so that when they get into the playroom, then they know what framework we're gonna be using.
• 32:23
  I have a better idea what we need to work on, and I've got the trust of the child and I've got the trust of the parents, and then we can do that transition work to shift over to those family play therapy sessions.
• 32:38
  And so I feel like individual play therapy is great, family play therapy is great.
• 32:47
  And there's a time when pla- family play therapy may be more beneficial.
• 32:54
  I would say oftentimes, the, uh, I'm usually, at some point I'm gonna be shifting over to family play therapy and doing some of that work in the playroom So is one better than the other?
• 33:10
  I'd say they're different, and that's where your clinical decision-making comes in.
• 33:16
  So that is it for today's episode.
• 33:19
  Let me just do a quick recap.
• 33:22
  Today what we're talking about is family play therapy, why just the child limits the outcomes.
• 33:29
  And, um, individual play therapy is very valuable, but on its own it tends to have a ceiling when the family system stays unchanged.
• 33:42
  And so week after week, you meet with the child for one, you know, 45 minutes to an hour once a week.
• 33:49
  All the other hours, they're with their family system.
• 33:54
  They're with their family and their parents a lot more than they are with you.
• 33:59
  And so it can, it can be the reason that you're hitting those plateaus, meaning maybe it's time to consider family play therapy sessions.
• 34:13
  Because when you do those family play therapy sessions, you get to see the dynamics in real time, and you get to coach parents to use those attachment-based parenting strategies in real time, and you can help them to do that.
• 34:30
  And when they, when it gets hard, you can coach them through that.
• 34:34
  I've had, I have had family play therapy sessions where it, it, it's a, it's one parent and a child, and the child is dysregulating all over the place, cursing up a storm, banging, hitting, stomping.
• 34:52
  And, you know, that's hard when you're a parent.
• 34:57
  So how awesome to have the trusted play therapist in there with you to help you learn to co-regulate and to co-regulate parent while parent co-regulates child until they really shift that dynamic about what's been happening, and they do that with your support.
• 35:20
  And you're getting support from your play therapy community Because it's important when you bring parents into the playroom, you really need to make sure you are using a play therapy model, because that's gonna help you figure out what to do, when to do it, and how to do it in the playroom.
• 35:43
  And there are times when family play therapy is not the right fit maybe yet.
• 35:49
  Maybe the parents need to do a little more work with you before you bring them into the playroom.
• 35:55
  Maybe they need to do a little bit more of their own individual work before you bring them into the pro- playroom, or maybe it's just not gonna happen.
• 36:05
  Um, maybe the child's in foster care or maybe the ch- parent isn't stable in or, uh, stable to be able to come and do work in the playroom And so, um, that is it for this week.
• 36:21
  These are all the things that we talk about in Play Therapy Elevation Circle.
• 36:26
  We, we have those consultation calls.
• 36:28
  We do mini trainings in there.
• 36:31
  We'll do roundtable discussions in Play Therapy Elevation Circle.
• 36:35
  The goal of Elevation Circle is that you're a play therapist, you don't have to do this alone.
• 36:41
  That we have consultation in there.
• 36:43
  We have, we have book clubs, so we read articles or we read books, but the purpose of that is to take what we've been reading and apply it in real time, and that way we have other people kind of discussing that information alongside of us, and we're kind of thinking together different ideas and strategies, what would that look like in the playroom?
• 37:07
  The… And I do weekly tips in there.
• 37:10
  Play Therapy Academy is a higher level, smaller cohort membership where we have small groups of a maximum of, of 10 people per cohort.
• 37:24
  There are courses in there in Play Therapy Academy for some of the foundational skills for play therapy.
• 37:31
  We, in Play Therapy Academy, there's al- uh, uh, there always two people doing case presentations, very structured for the purpose of learning how to do that case conceptualization and that clinical decision-making to figure out how are you gonna use your play therapy model in each session with a variety of different clients, and what is that gonna look like through each stage of the play therapy process.
• 38:01
  So we, we go a little heavier on the skill building and the deeper dive in Play Therapy Academy.
• 38:10
  Play Therapy Academy members have all of the, have access to all of Elevation Circle, so you get all of those things as well.
• 38:18
  If you're interested in Play Therapy Academy, I do have some openings right now.
• 38:25
  I only have openings in Play Therapy Academy as people leave.
• 38:30
  And so right now I do have some openings in Play Therapy Ca- Academy.
• 38:33
  If you're interested, you'll wanna schedule a video call with me to make sure it's a, a good fit for you, and then if maybe Elevation Circle would be a better fit.
• 38:45
  We could figure that out in that 30-minute video call.
• 38:50
  If you're interested in Play Therapy Elevation Circle, it, uh, enrollment for Elevation Circle is closed right now, but you can get on the wait list.
• 39:01
  So if you're interested, maybe you don't, you don't need the skill building, maybe you're not interested in pursuing your Registered Play Therapy credential, but you do want the support, Elevation Circle is probably a better fit If you're interested in pursuing the Registered Play Therapy credential, that's definitely Play Therapy Academy because I've designed it so it will meet the criteria for the Association for Play Therapy for supervision, and the courses in there will meet the, are, um, approved for Play Therapy CEs.
• 39:38
  So if you're interested in more, you can always pop over to my website at rhplaytherapytraining.com.
• 39:46
  There's courses over there.
• 39:48
  There's free res- resources over there.
• 39:51
  So if you're, um, interested in learning more information, you can pop over to my website at rhplaytherapytraining.com.
• 40:00
  That's rhplaytherapytraining.com, Renewing Hearts Play Therapy Training.
• 40:06
  If you're interested in Play Therapy Academy or maybe you don't know if Play Therapy Academy or Elevation Circle would be a better fit, schedule a 30-minute video call with me.
• 40:17
  We'll figure it out, and if it's not a good fit, that's the whole purpose of the phone call is to figure that out.
• 40:24
  So that is it for this week, and I will see you next week Thank you for joining me on this episode of Next Level Play Therapy.
• 40:40
  I hope you found the discussion valuable and gained new insights and ideas to support your work helping children, adolescents, and families heal.
• 40:49
  If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to the podcast and leave a review.
• 40:55
  Your feedback helps to improve and reach more people who can benefit from this information.
• 41:00
  Remember, play therapy is a powerful tool for healing and growth.
• 41:05
  Whether you're a new play therapist or experienced, I encourage you to continue your learning journey to unlock the potential of play in your own work and relationships.
• 41:16
  If you have any questions or topic suggestions for future episodes, I'd love to hear from you.
• 41:23
  Connect with me on social media and visit my website at Renewing Hearts Play Therapy Training to stay updated on upcoming episodes, trainings, and resources.
• 41:36
  Thank you once again for listening to Next Level Play Therapy.
• 41:40
  Until next time, keep playing, learning, and growing.