Solution-Focused Play Therapy with Children & Families: Co-Creating Change – Pamela King

Course Description

Solution-Focused Play Therapy with Children & Families: Co-Creating Change – Pamela King

Many therapists struggle with how to include children in family sessions using traditional -talk-based family therapy techniques.   Because younger children have less developed verbal skills and shorter attention spans, strictly talk-based therapy approaches tend not to effectively engage them or allow their voices to be heard. Using play activities and toys as conversational tools forms an ideal bridge for therapists to work with children and families together and provides a method to harness the full power of family therapy with young children.

Learn the basic tenets and techniques of Solution-Focused Brief Therapy and its application to children. Through video, demonstration, discussion, and hands-on practice, you will learn about collaborative goal setting, scaling techniques, and preferred future activities. This recording  will present strategies for applying creative activities to family therapy sessions and provide specific examples and demonstrations of utilizing Solution-Focused Play Therapy techniques in therapy with children.

1. Describe the rationale for integrating Play Therapy activities into Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) into clinical practice
2. Explain the utility of SFBT techniques with children and families as it relates to case conceptualization
3. Analyze scaling and preferred future questions with child clients through video, role-play, discussion, and practice
4. Describe clinical intervention strategies to incorporate parents and caregivers into play therpay activites to improve client engagement
5. Apply Solution-Focused Play Therapy techniques in-session with children who have experienced trauma
6. Demonstrate multi-sensory therapeutic activities in clinical small group practice

EXPERIENTIAL ACTIVITY: IDENTIFYING A PREFERRED FUTURE

THERAPEUTIC ASSUMPTIONS

• Solution-focused play therapy
• Role of the toy, the play, and the parent
• Language and how it impacts therapeutic success
• Video clip:  First Five Minutes

SFBT TENETS FOR PLAY THERAPY

• Exception finding questions
  • How to discover exceptions from child, parents, teachers, pets, and others
  • Activity
• Pre-session change
• Focus on a problem-free future
  • Miracle play
  • Do the miracle: importance of role-play
  • Wishes, magic, and other imaginative adaptations
  • Video clip:  3 Wishes
• Doing what works
• Collaborative stance
  • Integrating child’s goals and parents’ goals
  • Video clip:  Mom and Son Make a Plan
• Therapy is based on client’s goals and expertise

UTILITY OF SCALING

• Scaling essentials
  • Following the child’s lead-art examples
  • Future talk and metaphor
  • Scaling in action
• Scaling tools
  • Demonstrate scaling toys and activities
  • Video demonstration of scaling
  • Multi-participant scaling

SCALING PRACTICE

TRAUMA STRATEGIES

• Multi-sensory strategies for flashbacks and triggers
• Use of scaling with traumatic events
• Coping
  • I sort of want to live
  • Details of a less crappy day