Play therapist

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.