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NVAPT Nevada Association for Play Therapy January 2006 Newsletter Vol. 5, No. 2 PRESIDENTS MESSAGE-Tina Paone MA, NCC, NCSC, RPTWelcome! I hope that all of you had a festive holiday season. As the year rolls on rather quickly, the board is working very hard on bringing presenters that will bring a wide variety of play therapy practices to you. We are still working on a presenter for our June meeting, but we currently have a variety of presenters for our January & March meetings & our annual conference. Please join us on March 15th for the dynamic presentation of Sherry Sanders. Sherry will be presenting on using Sandtray in the schools. The meeting place is still being determined. Please check our website for future information. Another exciting event that will be coming up in the spring will be our 4th annual conference on May 6th. We will have the honor of hosting Eliana Gil who will be presenting on abused and traumatized children. Eliana is a forerunner in the area of play therapy with abused and traumatized children, so it will be a treat for us to have her present for our conference. Place will be determined, please check the website for future information. This will be a great year and I look forward to sharing our knowledge of play therapy! --Tina
Please join us for our next branch
meeting on January 18th. Come hear Dr. Jill Packman, PhD, NCC, RPT-S,
present “Heffalumps & Woozles: Working with kids who are different” Dr.
Packman is the past president of NVAPT and has been working with
children doing play therapy for several years. She will be talking
about children with disabilities. The
meeting will be held from 6:30 - 8pm at the Raley's Community Center
Robb/Mae Anne. For more information, contact Conference, May 6, 2006
We are proud to announce our Guest Speaker Eliana Gil who will be presenting on the use of Play Therapy with Abused and Neglected Children.
Biographical Information Eliana Gil, Ph.D. Dr. Eliana Gil is Director of the Starbright Training Institute for Child and Family Play Therapy which provides comprehensive clinical training in the treatment of child abuse and neglect, as well as play therapy with children and families. She is also Director of The Children’s Corner, a program of the Multicultural Clinical Center in Springfield, Virginia. The Children’s Corner specializes in the assessment and treatment of young children with a variety of social, behavioral, and emotional difficulties. Dr. Gil spent the last seven years as founder and coordinator of an abused children’s treatment program in Northern Virginia. She is a Registered Play Therapy Supervisor, Registered Art Therapist, and a licensed Marriage, Family, Child Counselor who received her doctorate in family therapy from the California Graduate School of Family Psychology in San Rafael, California. She has served on the Board of Directors of the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children and the National Resource Center on Child Sexual Abuse. She is also a former President of the Association for Play Therapy. Dr. Gil is an adjunct faculty member of Virginia Tech University where she teaches courses on family therapy, family play therapy, play therapy, and child maltreatment. Dr. Gil has written numerous materials on child abuse and related topics and has a number of educational videotapes that feature her work. Her latest books are Treating abused adolescents and Systemic Treatment of Families who Abuse. She has had several best-sellers including Outgrowing the pain; The healing power of play; Play in family therapy; and Sexualized children: Assessment and treatment of sexualized children and children who molest co-authored with Dr. Toni Cavanagh Johnson. Dr. Gil is a well-known lecturer, author, and clinician and has been a frequent guest on local and national TV and radio shows. She is bilingual and bicultural, originally from Guayaquil, Ecuador. This year (2005) marks thirty-two years that Dr. Gil has worked in child abuse prevention and treatment.
New Year’s Greetings from the Membership Committee! We’re looking forward to the January meeting. We also agreed that meeting off campus works best to foster the image of being a statewide organization instead of a campus organization. The Membership Committee Megan Evans Elizabeth Dear Katie Cruttenden
Article: Filial TherapyBill Lepkowski MS, NVAPT Vice PresidentIt is well recognized that parents play a critical role in the development and psychological health of their children. Not long after play therapy had been developed and practiced with children, had mental health professionals recognized the possibility of teaching parents how to conduct similar play times to help foster child change and growth. Such training is referred to as filial therapy. I have had the opportunity to conduct several filial therapy trainings and have found it a beneficial and valuable way to help both children and parents. In this approach, parents attend weekly meetings in which they receive instruction in the basics of play therapy. They are taught about the benefits of truly observing and seeking to understand their children through play. They are taught skills, given the opportunity to practice with each-other, and given a list of toys to develop their own play kits. About midway through the training they begin special play times once per week with one of their children. They then receive feedback from the weekly group to help reinforce skillful behavior and receive alternative ways of responding for the times they struggle. Research on filial therapy has found positive results, such as creating positive change in children, their parents, as well as parent-child relationships. I have found similar results, observing parental excitement as they learn and become empowered to respond to their children in a new manner. They report their children becoming more self-sufficient and reductions in parent-child conflict. It is also a way to promote the positive role-play and play therapy can have in the lives of children. I would encourage play therapists to consider receiving additional training in filial therapy in order to add a new way to provide support and aid to clients. It certainly has been a positive and exciting experience for myself and something I hope to continue to practice and improve on in my counseling endeavors. Article: Activity group experience with at-risk high school students Rebecca Rudd, NVAPT SecretaryI was a part of a twelve-week dissertation project at Wooster High School in Reno running activity groups for at-risk high school students. Moral development was the focus of these groups. Each student was given a pre-test to assess where they were on the Kohlberg moral development scale. All groups were given a dilemma and asked a number of questions that would correspond with a level of moral reasoning. Activity groups also included a structured activity that furthered the discussion of the dilemma as well as allowing students to learn more about themselves and how they perceive social problems. The study was then split into two sections, a talk group section and an activity group section with approximately 2-4 members in each group. The activity groups that I was involved in followed a three part structure that included a structured activity for 20, free time for 20 minutes and then snack time for 10 minutes. Structured activities ranged anywhere from stories, music to arts and crafts such as creating a superpower unique to the member, designing a mask that describes all their hidden faces, or a memory box that represents what is important to them. During free time the kids were able to choose an activity from the room full of toys. Toys included anything from puppets and swords to fingernail polish. Snack time would involve baking in a toaster oven or simple snacks like popcorn. As one of the group facilitators I gained a first-hand look at how a group structured in this fashion worked with high school students. The girls seemed reluctant to use free time at first, but as time went on the girls found interest in the art cart, nail polish and beading. My function, as a group facilitator, was to reflect meaning and content of the interaction between the members during free time. This proved to be a valuable tool for this particular age group. Many of the girls would respond to me and agree that I had pointed out what they were thinking in a situation where they could not verbalize thoughts or feelings for fear of not fitting in or being rejected. Snack time was a great opportunity to regroup and continue discussion from the previous activity or build group cohesion. Many of the snacks required members to bake their own food. The simple task of baking built trust with other members and self-confidence in that they could do something without needing the help or approval of others. One girl noted that she had never taken the lead in anything before, yet here she was trying to prepare pizza bites for her entire group. She would often ask others if they thought what she was doing was “right;” however, little response from other members was given. As the group leader I reflected her hesitancy and accomplishment when she had finished the task. Towards the end of the group sessions, many members stated how much they had enjoyed coming to group each week. Many of the members knew that we were also running talk groups that did not include activities, free time or snacks and mentioned they were very happy to have been placed in the activity group. A few girls noted that group was the only reason they came to school that day. When asked what they would change about their experience many of the members stated they would not change a thing other than offering these groups more than once a week. When probed further these girls mentioned that they had enjoyed the opportunity to meet new people, and think about problems or the moral dilemmas the groups were structured around. Tina Paone, the dissertation project leader, will be compiling the post test results over the next few months to see if there is any change in the moral stages of the kids in both groups and then compare them to see if either group furthered the moral stages of the students. Tina is not sure what results will be found as this is the first study of its kind. My perception, as a group leader of an activity group, is that there has been a noticeable positive impact on student’s moral reasoning and view on social problems. I am very excited to see what other positive results have emerged from this study.
Article, networking items, book reviews, comments to the editor about previous article/issues are all welcome. Please send submissions in at least 10 font. Articles need to be approximately 1000 words or less and book reviews 200 words or less.For more information on submitting an article, please contact:Laure’l Santos MA, NCC, the NVAPT Webmaster and Newsletter Editor at l1212s@earthlink.net orTina Paone, MA, NCC, NCSC, RPT, the NVAPT President at tpaone@washoe.k12.nv.us
It’s fast and easy to join the NVAPT. Dual membership in the Association for Play Therapy (national) and the Nevada Association for Play Therapy (state) is required. Individuals can join the organizations either as a professional or as an affiliate. APT members receive a quarterly newsletter that contains clinical articles and a semi-annual journal that presents research and case studies. Professional insurance options, distance learning opportunities, and a free annual membership directory are among the many additional benefits offered to APT members. Nevada branch members also receive NVAPT newsletters or e-newsletters containing information specifically related to play therapy in Nevada, such as meetings and conferences. To join, go to: www.nvapt.org/membership.htm.
Contact us by mail, phone, or fax Tina Paone, MA, NCC, NCSC, RPT NVAPT c/o Counseling and Educational Psychology Mailstop 281 University of Nevada, Reno Reno, NV 89557 (775)-232-7361 phone (775) 784-1990 fax
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