Leeds Beckett University - City Campus,
Woodhouse Lane,
LS1 3HE
How to become a play therapist
Make a difference to a child’s life using play to help them cope with complex and traumatic situations.
What is a play therapist?
Play therapists work with children aged 3-11, young adolescents or adults with learning difficulties.
Patients are generally referred following a diagnosis of psychological issues caused by harmful life experiences. You’ll use play as a method of allowing a child to express themselves, or to enable you to observe and assess their symptoms.
What qualifications do you need to be a play therapist?
An appropriate undergraduate degree is required as a prerequisite if you want to train to be a play therapist at postgraduate level.
Additionally, you’ll need at least two years’ experience working in a development role with children through either teaching, social work or psychology.
Undergraduate degrees – you’ll need a degree level qualification in teaching, social work, nursing, psychology, occupational therapy or a related subject to qualify for a postgraduate course.
Postgraduate studies – you can study a play therapy course accredited by the British Association of Play Therapists (BAPT) or Play Therapy UK (PTUK).
What does a play therapist do?
As a play therapist, you’ll implement various exercises in structured and unstructured play that will allow you to assess a child’s symptoms and help them to overcome their trauma.
Working with parents, teachers and social workers will help you understand the circumstances of the psychological issues in more depth. You’ll also work with other professionals to recommend additional treatments and therapy alongside play therapy.
Normally you’ll work with an individual child, but occasionally group therapy might be recommended. You’ll use items such as musical instruments, art, sand, water, toys and puppets. In each session activities usually follow one of two formats. In directive therapy, you might ask the child to use puppets to act out events in their life, to bring specific issues to the surface. In non-directive play, you’ll observe while a child loses themselves in a world of play, allowing you to pick up on a child’s less obvious problems and worries.
Your time spent with each child will help them gain insight and understanding of their experiences, develop their emotional resilience and provide them with methods that will allow them to cope with ongoing and future difficult situations. This will decrease problematic behaviours, which often exacerbate difficult family dynamics, and allow families to normalise their relationships, helping children and parents to move on from traumatic situations.
Every referral requires a unique plan and approach, but many routine activities are common to each situation:
- Reviewing documentation to understand the history of the case prior to therapy starting
- Interviewing parents, carers, social workers, teachers and others to get a deeper insight
- Planning sessions, preparing materials and providing safe environments for play
- Conducting and documenting sessions with children to assess issues, deliver treatment and review progress
- Working with multi-disciplinary teams on integrated plans for care and treatment
- Building trusted relationships with children and their parents and carers
- Keeping your knowledge current with new techniques for assessment and treatment
Becoming a play therapist could be for you if...
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You’re caring
Genuine empathy with children and your clients is essential, as is sensitivity and compassion.
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You’re robust
Inner strength will be your superpower when dealing with children and families who have been/are going through difficult and traumatic situations.
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You’re creative
You'll need to devise new and imaginative ways to encourage each child to engage in play therapy by offering them engaging and creative opportunities.
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You’re trustworthy
You'll be dealing with private data and sensitive, personal information, and you'll need to make judgement calls on who to share that with.
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You’re organised
With multiple children in your care and large amounts of documentation and tasks to manage you'll need exceptional organisational skills to juggle it all.
What are the typical working hours for a play therapist?
Your working hours are likely to be 9-5 Monday-Friday, although in private practices, you might need to be more flexible.
Part-time work is not unusual, and you might share your time between more than one organisation.
Travel, usually relatively local, is part of the role, and you might work for multiple service providers on numerous sites.
Salaries for newly qualified play therapists typically start at around £32,000, rising to £45,000 for experienced therapists.
Managerial or directorship positions in private practice can attract salaries ranging from £48,000 to around £75,000, depending on the size of the play therapy service and the number of therapists.
Play therapists within the NHS are usually in Band 6:
- £33,706 for less than two years’ experience
- £35,572 for two to five years of experience
- £40,588 for over five years of experience
Many play therapists work independently or take on private clients in addition to paid employment. Sessional rates typically range from £45 to £90 per hour.
