How to Find a Therapist for Your Child
Parenting is difficult. As parents, you deal with children who are not capable or do not have to skills to adequately express themselves appropriately. And in this day and age of technology and social media, it can be even more difficult to know what is going on with your children and how to help them effectively. Sometime, it means finding a therapist for your child. Other times it means seeking therapy for yourself because let’s face it, parenting is stressful.
Even though I’m currently not seeing children ages 12 and younger, I am available to parents who need a little TLC for themselves and guidance on parenting. Please contact me for a free 20-minute phone consultation. Otherwise, continue reading. My hope is that it will help parents/caregivers find a therapist that works with children. Also check out my blog on Recommended Books for Parents.
Association for Play Therapy
The Association for Play Therapy (APT) is on the best resources to finding information on play therapy and working with children. The Association for Play Therapy provides credentialing to therapists interested in working with children. This means anyone who has an “RPT” (Registered Play Therapist) following their name, has completed an additional 150 hours of play therapy instruction. In addition, an RPT has also completed 350 hours of providing play therapy to children under the supervision of an RPT-S (Registered Play Therapist – Supervisor).
In order for a play therapist to maintain their RPT credential, they must complete an additional 24 hours of instruction every three years. An RPT-S must complete an additional 500 hours of providing play therapist to children and 30 hours on supervision instruction (6 must be play therapy specific). In addition, RPT-S must complete and additional 24 hours of play therapy instruction and 6 hours of supervision instruction every three years. Basically, to be an RPT or RPT-S, these therapist are required to take many more hours of training and supervision.
APT also has a Therapist Directory, where you can search for a therapist what has the RPT or RPT-S credential.
-
- Choose the Country. If you live in the United States, this will cause the State field to appear.
- Choose the State. Do not bother to fill out City/Town or Postal Code fields unless you’re in a major city as this will limit the search results to that specific city, town or zip code.
- Under the Play Therapy Credential, be sure to choose RPT or RPT-S. If you continue to have difficulty finding an available play therapist, you can contact an RPT-S to see if they are supervising any therapists that is working on getting credentialed.
Child-Centered Play Therapy
The University of North Texas has a Child Centered Play Therapy Certification (CCPT). There are two levels of this certification. Level one requires 30 hours of additional educational learning and 30 child sessions with 15 hours under supervision. Level 2 (supervisor certification) requires 40 additional hours of learning, 100 client sessions with 25 hours under supervision and 10 hours of supervising a therapist.
Although, they do not have a directory of therapist, they do provide an downloadable excel spreadsheet of certified supervisors. You can contact a supervisor in your area to see if they are available to work with your child or know of any therapists who are available.
EMDR for Kids
Ana Gomez, MC, LPC of Agate Institute provides trainings/certifications for therapists applying Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) in their work with children. Please visit What is EMDR – for Kids to learn more about EMDR for children. Although there is no therapist directory, you can reach out to them and see they can help you find someone.
If you have any questions, you can
Judy Wang, LCPC, CPC provides online therapy in Maryland and Nevada. She works with individuals struggling with anxiety, OCD and trauma.