This 2-part, live online training with Dr Eliana Gil is designed to equip child therapists to facilitate healing play, and to make informed clinical decisions and utilise integrated approaches when providing play therapy to traumatised children whose play remains stuck and where their behaviour may be problematic to themselves and or others. This will specifically include children who struggle with sexual behaviour problems. 6 CE Hours.

Working with Children with Sexual Behaviour Problems: Integrating Play Therapy and Cognitive Behavioural Approaches

These live online sessions are designed to provide information to guide the play therapy process with children exhibiting sexual behaviour problems and provides a context for responding to them and their families in a purposeful way.  Information will be presented on both assessment and play therapy treatment.  The assessment results help to tailor individualized treatment plans and selecting play therapy treatment formats that might best address client concerns.  Emphasis is placed on accessing parents and caretakers to provide careful and nurturing supervision and guidance, and engaging children and their families in play therapy interventions designed to enhance their relationships.  Children will be taught to identify and use their internal controls, regulate their affect, and understand their unique cues of impending problem behaviors, in addition to recognizing and growing their self-esteem and resources.  A variety of play-based assessment strategies will be provided along with CBT-based treatment strategies.  Specifically, this program will:

• Assist the play therapist in defining sexual behavior problems to enable differentiation between normative sex play and sexual behavior problems
• Discuss the family context of sexual behavior problems, that is, look at factors that might mediate risk factors
• Describe a child-friendly assessment process for young children with sexual behavior problems
• Review and practice clinical directives associated with the assessment, including nondirective play therapy and expressive arts
• Propose a treatment model with specific play-based assessment strategies designed to engage children in self-disclosure and self-exploration of sexual behaviour problems
• Discuss the advancement of treatment goals using a combination of play therapy strategies, expressive and CBT-based approaches
• Discuss a number of resources available to the play therapist for working with children’s sexual behaviour problems

  Objectives:  At the end of these 2 sessions participants will be able to

• Define sexual behaviour problems
• Provide four criteria for differentiating between normative sexual play and sexual behaviour problems
• List two indicators of low-risk family dynamics and two indicators of high-risk family dynamics
• List four play therapy assessment strategies
• List two expressive arts strategies for exploring intensity of sexual behaviour problem
• Give a rationale for the integration of play therapy and CBT-based strategies when working with children with sexual behavior problems
• Discuss pros and cons of individual versus group play therapy

Participants will be advised on what materials to have for the live online sessions closer to the training days.