The Regulation Tool-Kit: Restoring calm for the overwhelmed child
In collaboration with the Children’s Therapy Center in Limerick Ireland in 2023 with Emer Mc Donagh.
This innovative course, which runs over two online sessions, explores creative tools to support and foster co-regulation and self-regulation. Developmentally appropriate, supportive therapeutic tools are presented, practiced and explored.
The course focuses on using materials commonly found at home and basic art materials to support regulation and restore calm for the overwhelmed child or adolescent. Key techniques are introduced and demonstrated by the trainer and participants have opportunities to practice using these therapeutic approaches themselves. We explore how anxiety, and other big feelings, impact on the brain and behaviour.
We focus on developing new skills and providing creative approaches to calm the brain, ground the body and foster more adaptive behaviours. The course is designed to equip professionals, and parents and carers, with tools for themselves and the children and teenagers they support and care for.
Each session begins with breathing and calming techniques followed by a focus on a particular area.
Regulation through:
Art and Drawing
Nature
Movement
Sensory tools
Thursday March 16, and Thursday March 23 from 9am-12pm.
Spots for this course are limited. Registration fees for this course are $225.00.
A Bit About Emer McDonagh:
Emer is the Assistant MA Course Leader at CTC. She holds an MA in Humanistic & Integrative Psychotherapy and Play Therapy and a BA (HONS) in Applied Social Studies in Social Care. She has extensive experience working with children who have experienced domestic violence and also with non residential parents and their children, maintaining and promoting quality contact. Currently Emer is in private practice at Acorns 2 Oaks Therapy Services and also provides trainings for professionals working with vulnerable children. Emer facilitates the CTC Level 6 Therapeutic Play Skills Certificate in Galway and also works as a CTC supervisor.
Enter the Metaphorical Journey: Inquiry Skills for Play Therapists
This training program will:
- Help you to “stay out of the way” of interpretation
- Show you ways to examine scenes or product with your clients while remaining in the metaphor
- Explore working with various metaphors represented in art, clay, sand and other materials
This 6-hour master class is for Play Therapy practitioners who use expressive arts, projective activities and sandplay with their clients and introduces play therapists to an array of questions that may be utilized when engaging with children, youth and adults during an exploration phase of an expressive-based activity. Through the inquiry skills training, therapists will be encouraged to “stay out of the way” of interpretation and instead assist the client to explore their scene or product while remaining in the metaphor. Cost: $325 +GST
Advanced Supervision for Play Therapy Supervisors: The Reflective Practitioner
~ 6 hours offered in one day or over two sessionsÂ
This master class focusses on the ways to encourage different forms of reflection during play therapy supervision sessions. The course will address the phase of the supervisee development as well as the phases of supervisor development. Supervisors will have the opportunity to work with other peers and identify areas of self-reflection as a supervisor. During the course, supervisors will identify ways to address process and moments in play therapy with supervisees.
Cost: $375 + GST
Class Information (pdf)
Play Therapy Research into Practice Series for Play Therapy Supervisors and Supervisees
~ 6 hours offered over 4 /1.5 hour sessions offered in evenings and/or Friday mornings
Play Therapy research into practice Series is a special focus on 4 different play therapy research articles and their application(s) to play therapy practice. During this master class, practitioners are invited into readings and discussion to further the relationship between research and practice. Cost: $225 +GST
Play Therapy Topics into Practice Series for Supervisors and PT Practitioners
~ 6 hours offered over 4 /1.5 hour sessions offered in evenings and/or Friday mornings
Play Therapy Topics into Practice Series is a special focus on 4 different play therapy topics for consideration in play therapy. The topics are provided by way of a different chapters or articles for review and reflection. How does the topic “fit” or “not fit” with your practice or the practice of your supervisees? In this master class consider how the topic may forward play therapy practice?
Advanced Sandplay Course
Sandscenes Through the Looking Glass: A Sandplay Journey Using Case Studies for Play Therapists
During the “Through the Looking Glass” series, participants will study emerging imagery in the sandtray, and how to track, respond to and record metaphors and themes.
The course will review 4 cases: Â 1) Three and a half-year-old David, 2) Five-year-old Nicholas, 3) Eleven- year-old (almost 12) Qwill and 4) Thirty-Two -year-old Laura. The cases identify different ways of working in sand along an age and stage of development continuum as well as the presentation of different presenting issues.