🎙️ Bonus Episode: Understanding Play Therapy Credentials and Their Impact

Think having toys in a therapy room makes you a play therapist? Think again. Join us as we welcome Jen Shivey to clear up common misconceptions about play therapy and to discuss the challenging path to becoming a registered play therapist (RPT) through the Association for Play Therapy (APT). Maria Diego and Liliana Baylon team up with Jen to examine the barriers such as in-person training requirements and high costs, which can put this credential out of reach for many, especially those in rural or underserved communities. Gain insights on how therapists can still provide effective play therapy even without the RPT credential and learn how we can advocate for broader accessibility and support within the field.

In this enlightening episode, we also differentiate between various designations and certifications in play therapy, shedding light on the subtle but significant differences between registered play therapists, play-based therapists, and those with play therapy certificates. We delve into the importance of verifying APT-approved training programs and navigating the ethical considerations surrounding different certification pathways. Whether you’re a seasoned therapist or new to the field, you’ll gain practical advice on making informed decisions regarding continuing education and credentialing, ensuring you choose high-quality training that aligns with your professional goals. Don't miss this deep dive into the complexities of play therapy credentialing and training!

A Hero's Welcome Podcast © Maria Laquerre-Diego & Liliana Baylon

Chapters

• 0:36 The Play Therapy Credentialing Debate
• 8:05 Navigating Play Therapy Certificates vs Credentials
• 19:44 Play Therapy Credentialing and Training Insights

Transcript

Maria Diego: 0:37

Hello listeners, Thank you so much for joining us on this bonus episode. I'm Maria LaCher Diego and I'm here today with my co-host, and that's me, Liliana Balon, and we're here with a good friend, Jen.

Liliana Baylon: 0:49

how do you want to introduce yourself?

Jen Shivey: 0:51

I'm Jen Shevia you see her pronouns and I am excited to be here and talking about our topic today. And I am excited to be here and talking about our topic today.

Liliana Baylon: 0:57

So, jen, you had a really beautiful summary of it as we were discussing earlier, like how are we going to introduce this topic?

Jen Shivey: 1:05

I knew that was going to come back on me, oh yeah, okay. So our thought for this episode was we have been having a lot of conversations, kind of internally, about what does it actually mean to be a play therapist? And so if you know any registered play therapists, you know that this term is a little bit territorial, and I'm here to say that maybe we've gone a little bit too far, maybe we pushed too hard on this, and I think that what has happened is that the intent was to really strive for making sure that individual therapists who are calling themselves registered play therapists, or even just play therapists in general, I guess, actually had the training to do play therapy. I think there's a misconception that if you have a box of toys somewhere in your office and you pull them out when you have a child under a certain age in your office that you do play therapy, and it's a completely different modality.

Jen Shivey: 2:02

It has tons of training, there's tons of nuances, there's a whole, you know, a whole level of stuff that you have to know to be able to actually be doing play therapy, as opposed to doing talk therapy with a young child. So the conversation kind of became how can we empower people who do not want to become registered play therapists? Because being a registered play therapist that's a long road. It's a long road, it's a lot of work, it's kind of confusing, it's not accessible to everybody, to everybody. And you know and I think for so long it's been you cannot be a play therapist unless you go through the whole everything with APT and that's great and you can do that, but it's just not accessible for everybody. So how can you be doing? You know, how can you be providing play therapy even if you are not going to do the full registered play therapist path?

Liliana Baylon: 3:00

Beautiful. So this is for everyone who's listening. Apt is the Association for Play Therapy, so this is not to say do not become. This is to say let's be educated about it. So I love the way that you did that intro. I keep hearing of therapists who are doing interventions and they call it either play therapy or family play therapy, and that's not what they're doing Right.

Maria Diego: 3:26

And we're not the only ones having this conversation. We're starting to see it a lot in our social media groups that we're a part of. You know, there's this discussion between play therapy, play-based therapy, play therapist and registered play therapist, right, and so it does start to get confusing if you're new and trying to find your way through. What can you be called, what can you call yourself, what can you use? And then I like that you pointed out. You know, becoming a registered play therapist with the association for play therapy is a long road, it's an expensive road. Um, we could argue that is a very privileged program to like, credential to achieve and we pause and say it is so.

Liliana Baylon: 4:11

It is full of color for people who work in agencies, hospitals, rural communities. Rural communities is not accessible to them and we have the good intent of like. Well, let's give them scholarships. Stop it. That's an insult what you're doing.

Maria Diego: 4:30

It's a kind yeah, I mean, I know it's intended to be a kind gesture, but for example, I'm in New Mexico. A kind gesture. But for example, I'm in New Mexico and you know half, if you want to become a registered play therapist, half of your hours need to be in-person live trainings with you in the room. As a trainer, I believe I am one of maybe five in my entire state that provides CEs for APT. Yeah, the middle of my state, there's nobody. There's nobody. So to obtain these live hours, there's lots of travel and additional expenses that are incurred, and that's just not feasible for everybody, especially those new in our field.

Jen Shivey: 5:13

It's not, it's not. And so I, liliana and I, are close to Denver, colorado. We live in a metropolitan area. There are still not a ton of live trainings for RPT, and you know I just want to throw out there too, that all of us are registered play therapist supervisors. Maria and I are both approved providers for play therapy through the Association for Play Therapy, so we're not and and we worked hard to get those designations and we are proud of that. It's also I don't know that I would have been able to do that had I not lived in a place that had access to all of that and, honestly, I did it under old rules that you know. I was able to take a lot of my trainings live, but that was also. You know, I guess I'm not a seasoned therapist.

Liliana Baylon: 6:00

Um, don't totally like listening to us. Every time when we complain about season, we do the air quotes seasoned therapist.

Maria Diego: 6:09

We need a new term. We just hate that term, but I mean.

Jen Shivey: 6:13

I know, I know, and it's also just like grappling with our own, like this, this, how old we are, I guess. But yes, I've been practicing for about 15 years and 15 years ago we did not have all the Zoom meetings and all of the global access that we do. Now. We know, now, that you can do a really good training online. You know, is it awesome to do in-person trainings too? Yeah, but even living where I live now, there's not a lot, because the games of everything has changed. It is really expensive to rent a space to be able to have these. Many of us, like we're, we're working out of our home offices a lot, you know.

Liliana Baylon: 7:01

You know, um, um, and there are so many online trainings that, yes, like maria was saying, to travel somewhere to get a training, um, like, it's a lot, it's a lot logistically, you know so I think the accessibility absolutely right and when we're talking about the attendee right, because we can talk about the presenter and there's a lot of stuff there, and Because we can talk about the presenter and there's a lot of stuff there. And then we can talk about the participants. So, even when you said the in-person life trainings, maria you were talking about, I was like as a therapist, I have to miss income, I have to cancel clients to go take these trainings and if I have to travel because you're not, I have to now get a hotel. It's either airfare or gas. Let's be honest, it's equally expensive Either one. Yeah, I have to eat. So now it's costing me to get trained for something that you are requiring me, but you're not flexible to me. But let's come back. So this is the beauty of when the three of us get together and we're like what is happening in our field? Um, so for all our listeners, let's go back and do a recap.

Liliana Baylon: 8:06

So there's a difference between being a registered play therapist, which is a trademark from apt, a play therapy is not trademark. We couldn't because it's too big. Um, and we have play-based therapists uh, play therapists trained like. Those are the two, um, uh, what is the titles that I've been seeing quite often. And then we have uh trainings that are approved play therapy trainings, and please look for that number for that seal usually it's a blue circle, like it's a logo to know that if you are on track, if you want to go and be a razor blade therapist which we're saying you don't have to, but if you choose to, then look for that number, look for that logo.

Liliana Baylon: 8:54

And then we have a lot of play therapist certificates, and this is where we started our conversation, because a lot of the new cohorts that are coming out just because we're seizing doesn't mean that everyone has access to the same information. So the new cohort that Jen and Maria were mentioning earlier is new therapists who are eager to learn. They want to be properly trained to work with this population and we thank you for it. Um, so there's a lot of play therapist certificates out there. That is very confusing for them. So they see play therapist certificate and they're like that's it. I go get those and then I will become a play therapist. Um, certified, that's the the. I will become a play therapist certified, that's the title Certified.

Jen Shivey: 9:37

Yeah.

Liliana Baylon: 9:37

Certified play therapist. I'm like there's no such thing, but, and there's a difference between taking a play therapy certificate and and then being a registered play therapist or a play therapist certificate for a specific play therapy model. So there's three different things there.

Maria Diego: 9:56

And those are just the ones we're aware of. I'm sure there are so many other ideations of this idea out there, right, because we know that play is universal, so we're aware of what's popping up in our circles. But I also can only estimate what we're not aware of that's continuing to happen out there, right, and I think that it's. I see it a lot with my play academy, right. I'll get lots of inquiries around my play academy, like is this a certificate program? What does this count for?

Maria Diego: 10:30

And so trying to just, you know, be really upfront with all of my own wording that I map out and provide everything so that you're eligible for the registered play therapy credential. I can't give you the credential that belongs to APT only, but I can get you to the door with application in hand and then it's up to them to approve it, right? Whereas the certificate programs, the certification programs, they are their own entity, so they can gift you whatever title they're giving with their certificate program, and that's just different than being the trademarked registered play therapist through APT, therapist through APT, not to say that it's one is necessarily better than the other. I think there's a lot of factors that go into that, including accessibility. You know, I know we've got, you know, certification programs popping up that are mostly online, you know, and they try to. They seem to include a lot of you know some of that, but they don't have the same requirements that the registered play therapy certification has, which is which is a lot yeah.

Liliana Baylon: 11:43

So for all of you who are listening, when we're talking about play, therapy, certificates for credentialing, we're talking about outplay, we're talking about trauma play, we're talking about um, spt, we're talking about their play, like their, uh, filio, like there is a specific um and there's more than I'm missing. I was like, oh my god, who am I missing?

Maria Diego: 12:02

I know, terry cutler's like sand andre sand play.

Liliana Baylon: 12:08

There's so many, so many yeah, but now what we're saying with this podcast is please inform yourself. Associations are making this assumption about you, which is one, you're educated. Two, you have access to information because everyone has access to wi-fi. That's their assumption, um, and therefore you're going to be able to sort all these out. That's their assumption, and the reality is that there's a lot of ethical issues out there I wanted to say unethical people which, fuck it? I'm gonna say there's a lot of unethical people out there, right? So please, please, please.

Liliana Baylon: 12:48

If you have questions, you can always reach out to any of us. You can always reach out to a registered play therapist supervisor and ask questions. Um, in regards to the academy, because I keep sending Maria people which is something that I love about that is that a lot of the times when they change the credentials APT, when they change their standards which Maria and I participated in those meetings and we walk out feeling like what happened and how we're gonna explain this, and even for the apt, they were holding meetings to explain, which it was never explained. Sorry guys, if you're listening to this, I doubt that you're gonna be listening, but if you do this.

Liliana Baylon: 13:29

Um, we were like what does that mean? Yes, it took more than a year of them being consistent, but we're still at least hearing comments of they deny this, they don't want, so they're not even clear in regards to what is it, and they're not consistent on when they're accepting or not accepting, not to even say that we have two different tracks. We have the university track and then we have the private section.

Jen Shivey: 13:57

I was just gonna say we haven't even talked about the university track yet, right? Um, which is a whole nother ball of I mean, okay. So so I teach at a university that offers um, they're an approved center for play therapy and they offer a child and adolescent certificate program. So getting that child and adolescent certificate program which, by the way, also would include way more hours than you actually need of training hours than you would need to get to fulfill the RPT requirements does not make you a play therapist. It doesn't make you a registered play therapist. It means you have a certificate in child and adolescent therapy, right, but it's confusing. I have so many supervisees, just because that happens to be like a local university that we have a lot of supervisees from, and so they get out and they're like, ok, well, I did all this, like that is awesome, so that's one, right, and so it's a good and bad thing, and I mean it's so.

Jen Shivey: 14:55

I mean the good thing about doing the whole registered play therapist track through APT is that it's almost like like a mini version of getting your licensure to begin with. So so you know, if you're listening to this and you are not a mental health therapist, to become licensed you need to go to grad school. So you're going to spend a lot of time and money learning how to be a therapist and after that you don't get to just like practice out in the world on your own. You have two to three years at least that you being monitored by somebody and you're tracking hours. You have to have two or 3000, depending on your state, and again, it's not consistent. We're going to have a whole other talk about that but depending on your state it's.

Jen Shivey: 15:40

You know you have to have like thousands of hours under supervision and so much you know, an X amount of supervision hours within that and X amount of trainings within that. So you know, being a registered play therapist includes some of that. You have to be licensed. You can do all the stuff for your RPT and hold onto it If you get done with it first, because you can't have it until you're licensed.

Jen Shivey: 16:02

You have to have X number of supervision hours by an RPTS, you have to have X number of training hours and that's like that's a lot of. The problem that we're running up against is because some of of those, so many of those hours have to be in person and it makes it inaccessible. And so our fear is that, because this seems a little unwieldy you know for that a word, unwieldy, I don't know difficult for other people, for you know everybody to digest and put together. We don't want people deciding okay, you know what, that's too complicated. I'm just I'm not going to do it, I'm just going to, I'm going to wing it or I'm not going to work with kids at all.

Jen Shivey: 16:38

I'm just only going to work with maybe like teens and up.

Maria Diego: 16:41

Right, which is our, which is our biggest fear because of growing need.

Jen Shivey: 16:45

There's such a huge need for play therapists. And so, yeah, then the conversation of who yeah, who does own that title of a play therapist. And you know what does that mean if you're a certified play therapist versus a registered play therapist, does it, does it matter, does it? I mean kind of, because APT and this was their intent to put the standards in place so that it was consistent and to make sure that everybody had the same level of training, which isn't working in terms of equity. So, right, absolutely.

Maria Diego: 17:17

Right.

Liliana Baylon: 17:18

Or focus right, the three of us here. I love the analogy of licensure, by the way, I would like to let it sink Like a mini version yes, but also when you want to. And again for all of you who are listening, having this credential is a secondary credential. So you need your licensure and then this is just a credential, additional letters to your name. That does not impress anyone anyone with the exception of other colleagues but each state has a requirement of you not to um practice outside the scope of therapy.

Liliana Baylon: 17:52

So now, when you get out of school, they tell you, go treat everyone because you are, like, ready to treat everyone. That's not true. They lie to you and then they tell you you can treat any subject. That's not true. You need a specialization on it. So play therapy, that's exactly what it is. Even when you say I work with teens, yeah, that's still a specialty. There's still things that you need to know. So this is the beauty of the foundations, that theories of play therapy. Play therapy is not just having games and playing and doing talk therapy. Yeah, you know who you are we know who you are.

Maria Diego: 18:33

That's called play based, right based.

Liliana Baylon: 18:36

It's therapy, yeah experiential therapy you're using a play board, you're using Legos, you're using something in order to engage in talk therapy. Play therapy is completely different. Right, we're talking about awareness in regards to not only what model are we bringing in, which is not just one model. We're also thinking about oh, because of this I'm going to bring this intervention what are the play themes that they're surfacing? What kind of play is the child doing with me? What is the age of this child in front of me? Not only chronological, but developmental. There's all these things that come into play that the reason why APT went too extreme to this is because there was a lot of people using games and saying I do play therapy um which is not true.

Liliana Baylon: 19:26

You know it, we know it. Uh, and because of that, now we're all playing, paying the price of having these extremes. In regards to now, we're micromanaged by an association because there was too many entities doing this, so so this is again not to shame. This is to create, this is to provide information so that you are informed when you are designing, deciding what you're going to spend your money on, with who you're going to be spending your money on, and not only for you to start thinking of. It's not only the money that I'm giving you for this training, but it's my time. And what track am I following? Is this just so that I can continue with CEs, continue education? Is this because I care about the population and I want to be trained, or is it because you know what fuck it I'm paying? All this money might as well get the credential. Whatever you decide, whatever is important to you, we want you to be informed, absolutely.

Maria Diego: 20:28

Absolutely. And you know we all hold the credential, we all believe in the credential and we can all have issues with larger organizations and overarching authority organizations, Like both of those things can and are true for the three of us. So when you're, Liliana, when you were talking about like you know this any trainings that that clinicians choose to go to, you know it's a sacrifice of their own income, it's a sacrifice of their client availability. And I think I'm starting to see a trend where we're just becoming much more picky and selective about what we are signing up for, because we recognize now the sacrifice and I want to. I want to know personally that what I'm going to is going to be worth what I have given up to attend.

Maria Diego: 21:18

And I didn't hold that. You know that wasn't true for me five years ago. It was just like sure, Training sounds great, that title Fantastic, I just need 40 hours or whatever. And I didn't hold that. You know that wasn't true for me five years ago. It was just like sure, training sounds great, that title fantastic, I just need my 40 hours or whatever. Right. And now it's like you know what. We're seeing a lot more destination conferences. We're seeing a lot more like out of the box thinking conferences, and I think it's because we are starting to see clinicians are not just accepting like the bare minimum anymore and we are going to be really choosy about what we're spending our time and money and our clients time on.

Jen Shivey: 21:51

Oh, beautiful, absolutely.

Liliana Baylon: 21:55

And I think it's going to get better in regards to the way that we are picking, because the whole idea of it's not that we're rejecting the all idea is that we're saying like this is great foundation and we're learning as we go, we are evolving, so we need more than just these ideas, this is the pendulum swing.

Maria Diego: 22:15

Yeah right, we were over. We were too lenient before. Now we have over corrected and we are too stringent and too exclusive and unattainable. That, like our hope, is that we are going to find that gray middle ground absolutely, especially as everything is becoming accessible.

Liliana Baylon: 22:35

Now. We're taking trainings in australia. We're taking trainings, you know, in like, in, in several parts of of we. It used to be just the us, now it's like no, this topic is interesting and I'm willing to pay, even if it doesn't qualify for this because of my clients. Yeah, please, please, please, associations. Pay attention to this, attention to pattern.

Jen Shivey: 23:02

We, we really do want people to be trained in this. It is, this is like this is, this is the you know, the niche that we are super passionate about and that's why we hold those credentials. Um, and at the same time, we do recognize that you can get some of this training and not obtain that credential, and that's okay. And, and again I said in the beginning, I think I think that play therapists especially and there's other modalities too, like EMDR, has the same feel. There's, you know, eft, like they're, they're all, and for good reason, because you spend a lot of time and money and you know it's a lot to get certified in these things.

Jen Shivey: 23:39

I don't think people totally realize that either, you know, but there are smart ways to do it. So, for example, if you have just graduated and you know you want to do play therapy and it's your passion, you have to get licensure hours anyway. So be smart about it. Pick a supervisor who's also an RPTS so that you can do both at the same time, so you don't have to go back and do something later, because then you can just be living your best life practicing. You know, doing your pre-licensure hours anyways, but you're tracking your play therapy hours at the same time and you have to do CE units anyways for licensure. Be smart about it and do some of those that are play therapy trainings.

Jen Shivey: 24:16

Just make sure that they have the APT logo and they're from a provider, or else they won't count, which really sucks to get to the end and for us as supervisors to have to tell you we are so happy you did all that, but it wasn't through an approved provider and none of that's going to count towards your APT RPT credit.

Jen Shivey: 24:33

So you know, I mean and this is also why we want to bring an awareness to it there are ways that you can put this together to make it more, a little bit more accessible and make it make sense a little bit more. So, even if you're not going to get the whole credential. You know, I tell my supervisors, if you're working with kids, just track your hours anyways, like you're already getting supervision from an rpts, I can sign off on all your hours because you're being, because we're doing the thing anyways. So just start tracking your hours to start tracking your training. If you decide not to at the end, that's fine, but at least you don't have to go back and do anything. You know, because you decided you wanted it.

Liliana Baylon: 25:10

Yeah, and from an ethical perspective, you do. You're doing it the right way because you are consulting with a race race service supervisor who can guide you right. And then, if you decide to do so, especially because APT now has phases that you have to follow. So this is what I mean about the micromanagement, because now they're telling you, they're dictating what training you have to take, how many supervision, before you can move to the next phase. So please go to the APT website.

Liliana Baylon: 25:40

Again, this is not to endorse, this is not to say yay or nay. This is to say be informed. Right, go to the website and find out what will it take for you so that you can be informed in regards to the faces, the training that is required in each phase. And if you're like, what the hell, welcome to the club. Right, and this is this is Email me and then contact Maria, because she did this beautiful template. When we all got together at the beginning and Maria shared, I was like how many hours did you spend like doing? And I was like this is really good, you were sharing it.

Maria Diego: 26:19

Yeah, it made my math nerd brain real happy. I love a good spreadsheet that does all the work for me. Yeah, it made my my math nerd brain real happy. Uh, I love a good spreadsheet that does all the work for me. Um, yeah, you know, cause I I did.

Maria Diego: 26:28

I sat down and I was like, how do I make this accessible to the people in my community If I'm the only one that can give them live hours? Yes, I can pull in other presenters, and I do, because I don't need everyone to think the way I think. Lord, help them. Um, you know, so I do pull in others, but like, how do I make this? And it it wasn't bad, right, like I've mapped it out, it can be a two. What my program is is in two years, you, you are at the door, ready to turn in your application. I've been able to to rescue some supervisors who are like I don't do supervision outside of the academy anymore because I don't understand that and I don't want to track all those things, which is nice, and you can take some of these trainees. You can have a supervisor and never want the credential. That's okay too.

Liliana Baylon: 27:18

Yeah, right.

Liliana Baylon: 27:20

And the reasoning for, by the way, we're saying that is because the same thing that you have to pay and renew your licensure, any credential that you have, you have to provide c is to renew and you have to pay.

Liliana Baylon: 27:31

So at the end of the day, most of us realize, yeah, it's not working out the math when I have to pay too many associations for too many credentials. So please know that once you get this credential, you're going to be required not only to provide CEs and then to pay renewal, but also, like now, they're forcing you. They're forcing ways for you to be a member, not just to renew, in order for them to continue getting money and continue loving. So there's reasons why they're doing this. Also, it's not a bad thing. They get to love you for what they believe, not for what you believe for what they believe, right. So, as we're coming up, because we were like, oh, we're going to do this in this time, and I was like it's not going to work out, ladies, what is one closing either statement or advice that you want to give to the people who are listening to this?

Liliana Baylon: 28:28

I love how both of you went quiet and walk away. I was like I'm looking at both of you, Both of you won Visual learners Thinkers.

Jen Shivey: 28:37

Mine is get the training, get the training. Just be picky about the training you get, and we don't care if you get your RPT, we're here for you If you want it. We don't care if you get it, but we do want you to get the training.

Maria Diego: 28:51

Yeah, I love that. I think, in addition to getting the training, ask the questions If you're signing up for a certificate program, if you're signing up for a certification, if you want to go for the credential, ask the questions. What does this mean for me? What is this actually going to take out of my time and money? And you decide if it's worth it Only you can decide.

Liliana Baylon: 29:15

And, as a summary, there's a difference between registered play therapist that is a trademark from an association, it's a credential. From doing play therapy to being playing based, to being play therapy trained, you can call it whatever you want. What we're advocating is for doing ethically therapy with this population. That's what we are advocating for today. So with that, please be informed. Thank you for listening to us in this bonus episode and we'll see you next time. Until next time, thank you.