Twelve reasons why the PTUK/APAC play therapy courses are so
successful and are the best value
The only courses currently accepted for admission to the
Register of Play and Creative Arts Therapists – as Accredited by the
Professional Standards Authority under the AR programme
- Superior Content - comprehensive, balanced, coherent, consistent - addresses the key aspects for safe and effective practice
- The Most Effective Learning Methods
- Validation Through Research - the best proof of the results of training
- Professional and Academic Accreditation
- Better Career Progression Opportunities
- Best Quality Management
- Greater Personal and Career Support
- More Play Therapy Training Experience
- Minimises your Risk of Wasting Time and Money
- Good Locations and Availability
- More Items Included in the Cost
- Flexible Payment Methods
See also what our course
participants have said.
Comprehensive
The programme is the most comprehensive play therapy
training course available anywhere. Its theoretical framework is integrative
holistic. It is based on non-directive principles but integrates directive
working where appropriate. You will be working with both the conscious and
unconscious processes of the child and integrating research with practice.
The programme has not been designed on the basis of one or
two trainers' opinions. It is built around the competencies required to be a
safe and effective practitioner, as specified by an international panel of
experienced practitioners and subsequently validated by research. They are
updated regularly, recently for example, to include knowledge of neurobiology
research, its integration with psychological theory and its application to play
therapy.
The Tool-Kit TM method that is taught will enable you to
work with all dimensions of the holistic child: physical, communication,
understanding, social relations, emotional, moral/spiritual, creativity and
caring for self, communicating using the medium that the child has chosen.
Your impact on the children is more likely to have a lasting
benefit, rather than a purely short term effect, which usually results from ad
hoc training.
You will become highly skilled able to cope with a wide
range of children's emotional, behaviour and mental health difficulties.
You will learn more play therapy modalities and use of
different creative arts media than on any other course.
The programme is also the most comprehensive, in the world,
in terms of the techniques that are taught at Certificate and Diploma levels.
The Tool-Kit TM includes: art & drawing, clay, creative visualisation,
dramatic role play, masks, movement, music, puppets, sand tray, therapeutic
story-telling.
One of the most important principles of non-directive play
therapy is that it is child led with the therapist following and communicating
using the child's chosen medium. You will be able to offer the children a wide
range of creative and play activities. It is extremely unlikely that you will
be 'stumped', with the wide range of media that you will learn and have available.
Balanced Content
The course contains the optimum balance of theoretical,
practical and experiential work that is needed for safe and effective practice.
There is as little theory as possible but as much as necessary.
You should be able to feel fully confident about tackling
any issue, problem or action in the play-room that you are likely to encounter.
And you can reflect using your theoretical knowledge, after the sessions.
Most potential course members wish to become practitioners
first and theorists secondly. The course enables this right from the beginning
by providing the skills and techniques without over burdening participants with
theory.
Employers are interested in what applicants can do in terms
of helping the children - the competencies, skills and experience - rather than
the theoretical knowledge they possess.
Coherent Courses
The PTUK/APAC training programme are fully coherent courses
- they are not a series of disjointed ad hoc events. Each course is coherent
within itself and within the overall programme. The Post Graduate Certificate
course enables participants to work with individual children who have problems
of slight, mild and moderate severity. The Post Graduate Diploma enables
participants to work with children who have severe problems and also with
groups of children. There is a natural progression from the first module, which
provides sufficient skills to start working therapeutically with children.
The programme provides all the skills that you need to work
successfully. You will not need any other course. You can get off to a fast
start. You will be able to start working therapeutically with children as soon
as you have successfully completed the first module.
A Consistent Course
The PTUK/APAC programme is consistent across the world. The
same course content, faculty, learning and assessment methods are used in every
venue.
Employers will know that wherever an applicant has completed
PTUK training there is a consistent standard.
This provides every participant with flexibility in the
choice of location of the training. Someone who has completed the Certificate
in Australia could complete the Diploma in France or the UK, knowing that all
other participants will have received the same training at the Certificate
level.
Addresses the key aspects of safe and effective practice
One of the most distinctive features of the programme is the
high proportion of experiential work. These exercises go deeper into process
than scenario based role playing. You will understand the processes of the
children by experiencing the same ones yourself - this is essential for safe
and effective practice.
Unlike some other courses, personal therapy is not required,
unless a participant finds difficulties in coping with their issues or being
unable to practise safely with the children.
Although it is a training course, not a therapy group, all
participants will undergo considerable personal development due to the
exercises and the support provided by the Course Directors, all of whom are
experienced play therapists, psychotherapists or counsellors.
You will be able to build effective therapeutic
relationships because you will be equipped with an understanding of how and why
the children feel during therapy sessions.
The PTUK/APAC programmes employ a variety learning methods:
presentations; seminars; tutorials; practical exercises; experiential exercises
and clinically supervised practice.
We believe that participants should be able to put into
practice, which is closely monitored, what they have learnt. In this way they
will soon realise what else they need to know. Problems encountered in practice
may be discussed with both the teaching staff and peers.
- You'll learn more quickly
- You'll be putting what you learn into practice immediately
- You'll be able to learn safely from your initial mistakes
- By the end of the course - you'll already have good clinical
experience, not just about to start
The APAC play therapy training programme is the only one
worldwide, validated by continuous practice based research. The clinical outcomes
of course participants' work are carefully measured. At present the results of
the research, based on over 10,000 children, show that between 73% and 83% of
the children who have received play therapy from APAC trained students show a
positive change.
- This should give you confidence that your training will
enable you to obtain very good outcomes from your practice. No other course can
provide this.
- It will add substance to your CV/Resume.
- This gives the course the highest credibility with employers
and clients.
It is important, for credibility, that Play Therapy training
courses:
- Meet the requirements of Government regulation
- Are validated by a university for academic quality
- Accredited by a relevant professional organisation for
clinical and practical aspects
Government regulation of Play Therapy in the United Kingdom
has, since April 2013, been provided by Play Therapy UK's 'Register of Play and
Creative Arts Therapists' www.playtherapyregister.org.uk approved by the
Professional Standards Authority (PSA) under the Accredited Register programme.
The Register assures parents, employers and commissioners of services of the
quality of Registrants' therapeutic work.
The Register includes practitioners living and working
outside the UK. The PSA approved Play Therapy UK standards are used as de facto
standards in countries where there is no national government regulation of the
Play Therapy profession and are administered by Play Therapy International
(PTI).
It would be, in our view, irresponsible to employ anyone who
is not registered through a Professional Standards Authority programme to work
with the emotional, behaviour and mental health needs of children, a
particularly vulnerable client group. The APAC Certificate, Diploma and MA
courses fully meet the requirements of the Register, starting at trainee level.
Academic validation and awards are provided for the Post
Graduate Certificate, Diploma and MA in Practice Based Play Therapy courses,
delivered in the UK, by Leeds Beckett (formerly Leeds Metropolitan) University.
The National University of Ireland Galway (NUI Galway) provides academic
validation and awards for the courses delivered in the Republic of Ireland.
Many employers look favourably upon the holders of
university degrees and awards. Each Post Graduate course completed provides 60
'M' points.
Clinical accreditation - has also been obtained by APAC
through the International Board of Examiners of Certified Play Therapists
(IBCEPT) based on the international standards of play therapy competencies and
training course quality evaluation.
Whereas non-accredited courses and those offered for CPD may
give you some new knowledge, they are not sufficient to become a Registered
Certified Practitioner in Therapeutic Play Skills or a Registered Certified
Play Therapist. Nor are they usually recognised by employers or clients.
Accreditation of a course ensures that your time and money is not wasted.
Endorsement by independent organisations is one of the measures of the quality
of the course.
Being on the Play Therapy UK Register of Play and Creative
Arts Therapists and having successfully completed an academically and
professional accredited course makes it easier to get work.
It should give you confidence in your training because you
are assured that the clinical content of the course meets the highest standards
of play therapy practice on a regulatory par with psychologists, psychiatrists,
psychotherapists and counsellors.
The programme will enable you to develop your career by
building on your existing skills and experience and open up new opportunities.
It is ideal for professionals who are already working with children:
- Counsellors, psychotherapists, clinical psychologists,
psychiatrists and other mental health professionals who wish to, or are already
working with children. Therapeutic play and the use of creative arts therapies
will extend your existing skills. You will be able to deal with issues in complementary
ways and achieve significant results, as proven by practice based research.
- Teaching staff in primary schools, nursery schools,
kindergartens or children’s centres. You may add to your educational and
cognitive skills to alleviate the emotional and behaviour difficulties of problem pupils. If you work in a school - you will be able to achieve better
academic results and lower exclusion and unauthorised absence rates.
- Social workers, CAMHS teams, special residential care homes
- add therapeutic skills to your social work skills for dealing with children
and families. In social work you will be able to provide additional help for
children who are in transition, awaiting adoption, have problems in foster care
or have been abused.
The APAC Post Graduate Certificate in Therapeutic Play
Skills and the Post Graduate Diploma in Play Therapy are designed to be the
foundation for further career progression. They fit into the PTUK Four Stage
Training Model. By successfully completing these courses you may then progress,
if you wish, to:
- Become a Registered Certified Play and Creative Arts
Therapies Supervisor
- Become a Registered Certified Filial Play Coach
- Become an Accredited PTI Play Therapy Trainer
- or take your MA in Practice Based Play Therapy - by
dissertation
The training and support provides you with the medium term
opportunity to become self-employed, as an independent practitioner. It widens
your career options including portfolio working.
No other play therapy training programme has such complete
management of quality. Very few training providers, at large, take as much care
in managing the quality of their courses as APAC. This is achieved in three
main ways:
- Independent monitoring by the British Council for
Therapeutic Interventions With Children (BCTIWC) www.bctiwc.org
- Academic quality management by Leeds Beckett (formerly
Leeds Metropolitan) University and the National University of Ireland,
including moderation by an independently appointed External Examiner
- APAC's own four level Kirkpatrick based model of
training evaluation measuring:
- Reaction - particpants' immediate responses to the training
- Learning - through the assessment of what has been learnt
- Behaviour - what impact has the training had on changing the
therapeutic work with the children?
- Results - what results (in this case clinical) has the
trainee achieved
It is the quality as well as the content that makes the
PTUK/APAC play therapy training programme the most effective and best value on
offer.
Support of the course participants is provided in three
ways: clinical supervision, the faculty and career development.
Clinical Supervision - once you start to work
therapeutically with the children you will need clinical supervision, ideally
from a Certified Play Therapy Supervisor. This is provided as a part of the
course and will cover roughly one third of your needs. It is included in the
course fee. You will need to fund the remaining requirement, approximately
£400.
Faculty - APAC's is not only the largest single play therapy
faculty in the world. It is the most experienced. Its 14 members have over 150
years of training experience between them. As well as their practitioner and
specialist expertise, a number are highly experienced Counsellors,
Psychotherapists and Social workers. This provides in-depth knowledge of most
of children's emotional and behaviour conditions and also of a range of educational,
health and social services settings.
You will benefit from an unequalled range and depth of
knowledge a faculty that not only know their subjects - they know how to train.
The Programme Director is Prof. Monika Jephcott (IBECPT),
Europe's most experienced play therapy trainer, who originated and designed the
courses. The courses are run, by experienced play therapy Course Directors and
specialist facilitators of art, career development, clay, ethics, masks,
movement, music, puppets, research, sand and therapeutic storytelling.
With this size of faculty there is less risk of the course
suffering from the incapacity of key members of the faculty. You will learn a
variety of techniques from a number of different perspectives.
Professionalism and career support - as well as learning to
become a safe and effective Play Therapist you will be provided with the
knowledge to become a complete professional and the support required to further
your career. APAC considers that it has a moral obligation to help everyone who
successfully completes the course to find the type of work that they want and
to achieve realistic levels of earnings. We do not say ‘goodbye - you're now on
your own' once you have finished a course.
Play therapy is an emerging profession in the UK. We will
help you to demonstrate the professionalism that is needed to secure the good
quality services that the children deserve.
You will be able to build a personally satisfying and
financially rewarding career with our help.
PTUK is affiliated to PTI who set the world's first play
therapy training standards in 1986 and have led the way ever since with its
Profession Structure Model based on a competency framework, recently updated in
2006, 2011 and 2013.
APAC have been running accredited play therapy training
courses in partnership with PTUK and PTI since 2000. Over 100 Certificate and
70 Diploma courses have been delivered during this time providing a unique
depth of experience. We currently (October 2013) have over 1100 active
students.
Undertaking any form of advanced and specialised training
involves the investment of time and money. The risk will vary from person to
person but should be considered carefully by everyone before they commit to any
training programme. PTUK and APAC have minimised the risk for most applicants:
Content - if you want to work therapeutically with children
the course will certainly teach you what you need to know because it is based
on the competencies required to be a successful practitioner.
Learning methods - the essential method is experiential
learning and this is the basis of the programme. You will learn to understand
how the children feel and process their issues. You will be prepared for most
events that are likely to occur in the playroom and to deal with them in a safe
and effective way.
Research - we know from research based on hundreds of our
students' cases that what APAC teaches works. We can accurately predict the
results that a year's cohorts of our successful participants will achieve. No
other course can do this.
Accreditation of any course that you undertake is important,
especially with employers. The APAC courses are fully accredited by
internationally respected professional and academic institutions at post
graduate level and fully meet the requirements of UK Government regulation.
Career progression - by successfully completing the
Certificate and/or Diploma courses you will be building a platform for
subsequent career enhancement. These are not courses that do not lead anywhere
else.
Quality management - many courses just rely on participants'
questionnaires filled in at the end of the course (happy sheets). APAC goes
much further in measuring what has been learnt, how it has been applied in
practice and the clinical results have been obtained. There is also the
advantage of independent monitoring of quality by the Universities and the
External Examiner. Very few training programmes in any subject undertake this
degree of rigorous control of quality.
Support - unlike many training providers, we do not leave
you to get on with it after you have completed the course. We provide a bridge
between the course and employment. Through PTUK you have access to advice on
marketing yourself in play therapy, producing effective CVs and interview
advice.
You will be able to approach the training with more
assurance that you will not be wasting your emotional investment, time and
money.
Our eight venues in the UK are within 2 hours driving time
of 80% of the population so you should be able to find one near you. There are
usually two intakes per year in most locations.
Faster qualification. You don't have to wait a year to start
the programme and you can progress quickly to the next stage.
All venues have been carefully selected.
Take care of yourself in these therapeutically sensitive
environments.
The course fees include:
- Tuition and facilitated exercises using a wide range of
equipment and materials
- Coverage of a very comprehensive Tool-Kit TM of methods
- Hundreds of pages of training material
- A CD-ROM or download with all the specialist forms and
PowerPoint presentation material you need to set up a play therapy service or
independent practice
- 5 clinical supervision sessions
- Continuous assessment of all exercises, and if necessary
personal coaching
- Review, appraisal and marking of all written work
- Administration and submission of all participants'
documentation to PTI and to the University (if you are registered)
- A two course lunch (sit down in most of the venues) and two
refreshment breaks
Most of the major expense items are included in the fees.
You will need to allow for books, 11 hours of supervision, professional
organisation membership (Play Therapy United Kingdom) and University
registration fees and for your travel, B&B and evening meals.
Payments for most courses in the programme may be made by
credit card, for which there is a small extra charge. This may make it easier
on your budget - you can spread your credit card repayments over the duration
of the course.