Creative Child Therapy Workshops
Provides practical training and resources for therapists working with children and families
Cooperative games are games in which players need to work together in order to win the game. One of the simplest examples of a cooperative game is working together to keep a balloon in the air. The experience of doing this as a family or as a team means that you tend to experience the…
Totika is a commercially available game developed for use in therapy. It’s a stacking tower game like Jenga, however the blocks are coloured and it’s played with a pack of cards with questions corresponding to the colour of the block moved. It’s the commercial therapy game that I play most often in sessions with children,…
Playdoh is one of my favourite mediums to use with children in therapy. It can be shaped to be anything you want it to be, which makes it endlessly useful and adaptive. Playdoh is obviously terrific for free play, however it can be used to work with children on areas such as perfectionism and flexibility…
I recently watched in awe as one of my children tried a completely new sport. He’s a teenager now and is at an age where trying new things isn’t easy, particularly when the rest of the team have all been playing for some time. Trying new things takes courage – it involves putting ourselves out…
Slime is undeniably messy and making it is even more so. Whichever of the many readily available recipes you choose it involves mixing glue and other ingredients with a slime activator, such as liquid starch or borax. Making slime is particularly messy when you make it with a child without using a recipe. Having the…
Having a session go “flop” or “go wrong” is a challenging, albeit common scenario. It’s useful to reflect on the context in which this occurs and think about what we can do when this happens. Firstly, it is important to recognise that in part this challenge occurs because we have a plan. That is to…
Last year as we decorated the Christmas tree my eldest picked up an ornament and asked, “Is there any story with this one?” That simple moment highlighted for me just how powerful family rituals can be. Decorating the tree is something we do together in our house. It’s something we look forward to and my…
Often the most powerful work happens in therapy when we engage with the child around their interests and integrate these into our work. Utilising interests is often recommended in the context of motivating and engaging children. Therapists are often encouraged to either use a child’s interests to reward them after they complete a therapy activity…
We’ve always had one TV in my house. My thought has been that we can negotiate and compromise and that this is, indeed, an important thing for us to do as a family. I’m certainly not about to judge others for the number of televisions they might have, however it worked for us. That was,…
There are so many wonderful picture books that can be incorporated into therapy. Many children enjoy books and the experience of being read to can often feel nurturing. Books also have a normalising value: their existence implies that other children have experienced similar difficulties and helps the child to feel less alone in their experience.…