A Hero's Welcome Podcast

Beyond Play: Why Child Therapists Matter with Laura Brownstein

• Maria Laquerre-Diego, LMFT-S, RPT-S & Liliana Baylon, LMFT-S, RPT-S • Season 2

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Child therapist Laura joins us to explore the concerning shortage of therapists willing to work with children, despite growing mental health needs among youth populations. 

• Laura explains how even in therapy-rich Los Angeles, there's a significant gap in child therapy services
• Many clinicians avoid working with children due to fear, lack of proper training, or hesitation about parental dynamics
• Educational programs often lack comprehensive child therapy training, creating knowledge gaps for new therapists
• Quality supervision specifically for child therapy is increasingly hard to find
• Becoming credentialed as a Registered Play Therapist involves significant barriers including time and financial investment
• Despite challenges, working with children offers unique rewards like becoming a stabilizing force during difficult times
• Child therapy serves as preventative mental healthcare, potentially reducing adult therapy needs later
• Innovative solutions like loan forgiveness programs are emerging to incentivize therapists to work with children
• Laura emphasizes the importance of reconnecting with play for therapists of all specialties
• The podcast hosts encourage support for Laura's educational efforts through gift cards for therapeutic supplies

Looking to support child therapy in your community? Consider donating supplies to local child therapists, advocating for better compensation for mental health professionals, or exploring play therapy for children in your life.


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

Maria:

Welcome back listeners to another episode of a Heroes Welcome podcast. I'm your co-host, maria, and I'm here with my co-host.

Liliana:

That's me, liliana Bailon. Good morning everyone. Hopefully it's morning by the time you're listening to this podcast and if not, just go with it. Go with the flow. It's morning somewhere. It's morning somewhere. We are here with our special guest Laura. Laura, how do you want to introduce yourself to our audience?

Laura:

Yeah, I guess. So I guess one of the kind of focus ways I'm a child therapist in Los Angeles. I'm in LA Sorry about everybody going around, but no child therapist. Private practice owner Laura.

Liliana:

It's like isn't it funny when we start apologizing for our location, everything that is just happening. I'm so sorry, let's move on.

Maria:

It feels like the world's a little bit on fire from every corner. So it's okay. Yeah, it's okay, but we're so glad that you're here.

Liliana:

Yeah, glad to be here, so we are so excited that you're here. Can you tell us, laura, what is it that we're going to be talking about today?

Laura:

Yeah, so I'm also an educator, so that's another kind of hat I have. I teach at Pepperdine University here and I've been kind of so I teach some of the child and adolescent classes for therapists, mfts, and I'm actually noticing kind of either they don't want to work with couples or families, but I'm actually noticed, at least in LA, which is really surprising. There's not enough child therapists. So, as saturated as therapists are here, there's not a lot who want to work with kids.

Liliana:

I'm noticing yeah, so let's name it right, because we've been noticing that for a couple of years. Now. I'm not going to say what happened a couple of years, but we're going to say something happened a couple of years where a lot of people are actually either I love that you named that either terrified to work with children and therefore they're not working with that population, or terrified working with couples and therefore stay away from them too. But let's focus on being a child therapist, a play therapist. Have you noticed anything to highlight why people is a burnout? Is it after COVID? Is it the credential? Is it the training? Is it the liability or is it all of the above?

Laura:

Yeah, I think it's all of the above, but I think too, like the quality supervisors here too, like there's not enough supervisors trained to work with children and adolescents. So the students, at least that I know, that do work with children or at schools are not getting good supervision, because at least here to be a supervisor it's just like you have to be licensed two years and get a CEU course, which I don't think is really good, but I think a lot of the training too. For some of the students it's not as good. So that's why, being an RPT, you get the training, you get quality supervision. So that's what I enjoyed about that. But I think it's like a blend of all of them. And also working with parents. A lot of people don't want to work with parents, so that's like another kind of con. And there's legal issues, because the law and ethics are different from working with kids and adolescents to adults. So it's like a blend of all the above.

Maria:

It is a specialty, right, like working with kids is a specialty. It does require additional training and supervision and considerations. You're not alone in finding that there's this drought in the clinician's field where people don't want to work with kids, like we're going to talk about kids specifically this morning, and I think a lot of it comes from what you've named. I know in our community there aren't places for internship or externships that deal with children. Most of our local spots are. You know, they're adults and so they come out of program with zero or very little interactions practicing skills with kids, and I think that's where it starts Right. And then it becomes like oh well, now it's too complicated, they're different, I didn't have that experience, or there isn't anyone to supervise me who can help. Like really feel like they've got my hand to walk me through this.

Liliana:

Especially at university settings, as you were sharing, because I know here in Colorado there's not a lot of registered play therapist supervisors at the university level, providing not only the classes but the supervision, so that becomes himself a specialty. And then, as Maria was mentioning, then even when you graduate and then you go, you go to a lot of agencies that say, yes, we work with kids, but they don't offer proper supervision because they're not RPTS or they're not even RPTs. Yeah, of us are doing, because ethically we're breaking so many things here by not being professional and ethical as providing the services either to the supervisees or or to the kiddos that we're serving. Um, but the thing that I want to go back, because as a parent, maria is a parent, laura, are you a parent?

Liliana:

no look at you. Is that why you look so younger than us? I mean, we're not going to make a video out of it, but why are therapists afraid of us parents? We're so lovely.

Maria:

Liliana, the parents are the problem. We've had a whole conversation around this already. I think that's and, laura, you can share with your experience too. When I do find someone who's willing to work with kids and willing to do the training, and I'm willing to do supervision with them as a plate therapist supervisor, and we get them in the room and they start to feel confident in working with kids, then you're like, oh, and now we need to do a parent consult or this is how we involve the parents, and it's like terrified.

Liliana:

Okay, everyone out there, did you feel the momentum? It's almost like the horror movie.

Laura:

We prep you and then, as soon as we say the parent consult, like the scary part came on Parent counsel like the scary part came on, yeah, but even so I mean because like that's something I tell, like the students too. I mean you need to incorporate the parents, because you're only with the child one hour a week. So there were, and then I also involved the school. That's another kind of team you have to involve, so because they're at school so much of the time during the week and then at home, so you need to involve these different systems in the treatment. So even I mean I've had cases where parents are really on board, they're willing to help, they want to kind of be an agent of change.

Laura:

But then you have some parents that's like that's so, that's where the kid gets the stuff from. That's so, that's where the kid gets the stuff from. So you have that, and so I mean you kind of get different parents in your experience with kids. So I do empathize with some of the students who are like, oh my God, parents are. The problem there's also involving them, working with them, maybe referring them to their own therapy down the road too. But yeah, you kind of get a different blend.

Maria:

Yeah, and it's a lot of people right. Both with working with children and working with couples, there's more than one person involved in treatment, even if they're not in the room all of the time. Yes, and I think that that's really scary, especially for newer clinicians, right, like they get a lot of training on how to deal with one person in the room and be present for one person in the room, and then we we as system thinkers think outside the box and pull more people in and they're like, oh, this is really overwhelming. How do I stay balanced, how do I stay focused, how do I not get pulled into that triangle?

Liliana:

yeah, so I'm wondering, laura, if you got your way and then you had, let's talk, as Lisa Deanne will say, let's talk about fantasies and if you have your way and our association, when we're working for credentialing, credential, the credential of RPT, they will include also systems like help clinicians when they're they're not mfts, because we're very privileged. Can we say that too? Um, but like include classes in order to work with the system, in order to work with the family. Did you think that that will help or is that a fantasy that we have?

Laura:

I think it would help Whether it's going to be done. I don't know.

Liliana:

It's a fantasy, laura, don't ruin it.

Laura:

Yeah, I don't know, but I mean it kind of comes from the educators too and kind of teaching kind of from their perspective. So at least in my classes I teach about working with multidisciplinary teams, I teach about working with schools, with families. I give resources to all my students about how to involve them, what trainings to do. So I think it comes. I mean that would be nice if it was a class on how to do it, but I think it just comes more from an individual level and experience. So kind of having teachers who know how to work with kids, know how to work with families, and then having them kind of educate on a smaller scale how to know how to work with families and then having them kind of educate on a smaller scale.

Liliana:

Yeah, yeah, I was going to say so. It's a combination right. So it's like how do we give you the foundation so that you can be grounded as you're working with multiple nervous systems in the room? How do you're able to zoom out in order to understand family dynamics and the impact that it has on each other? And then how do we throw you to the wall so that you can get life experience while you have a supervisor next to you, so that it's not overwhelming and it's helping you be grounded and acquire that experience, so that it becomes the gift. Yeah.

Laura:

Yeah, sounds good yeah.

Maria:

Well, if we were to take let's take that magic wand, laura and like keep going. So if we can do better in the programming and in our education for clinicians, that's one step. How else, like in the other systems and agency work and community agencies and employers, how else can they consider being supportive to clinicians who want to work with kids?

Laura:

Yeah, and I think part of that is I'm seeing a lot of that now, at least in LA and California is they're starting to incentivize people to work with kids. So I actually saw this loan repayment program. They're offering a hundred thousand dollars off your loans to work in an approved site working with kids and adolescents. Oh, so they're starting to incentivize clinic child therapists essentially. So I think sort of that's coming out, um, and I don't know if that's just california and maybe just california, but there's some agencies out there that are kind of incentivizing that Um.

Laura:

But I think a lot of it also comes from, like, if you're talking about agencies, the supervisors yeah, so, being properly trained in working with kids in that lessons, because so much of the time you have supervisors who just work with adults their whole life and then they went to a school site and, okay, I can supervise you, but they don't have a lot of that experience Because, again, talking to an adult is different than talking to a kid.

Laura:

You may do play with the kid, so I think we may see some of that where, like, quality of supervisors needs to kind of change too and, again, with kids, you still get burnout. Yes, so I think, kind of making sure that there's like the agencies like are paying their clinicians enough, because again, we're seeing that's an issue. Community mental health settings oh yes, high risk of burnout, because I work there, high risk of burnout. You get experience with kids but they're going to burn out and then you get exposed to some trauma cases. So kind of making sure you're being compensated for what you do but also making sure that you have breaks, that you have time off and you're not working to the bone.

Liliana:

It sounds like you're ready to run to become the next president or CEO of the Association of Plate Therapy, and you have my love.

Maria:

I love. I love this, though, because I think there does need to be. There needs to be systematic change right For longevity in this profession, especially with kids, right? I think you know you're naming some of the things that are on my wishlist for child therapists Like we should be compensated more. We do more work outside of the session. We require additional specialized training and supervision. That all comes with a cost.

Laura:

Yes, yeah, definitely, definitely. And it's important for working with kids too, because, again, like I tell my students, you're not going to be talking for 15 minutes with the child, you're going to be doing things, playing with them. And then the cost of buying materials, and if you're working at a school-based setting, they're already, but they're already don't have enough money, so you're going to be buying stuff yourself. Yes, so it's a lot. It's a lot to consider when working with this pop. It's rewarding. It can be rewarding, yeah, but it's want.

Liliana:

And I know I keep joking right Like you have my vote Tell me when you are running for it, because, god, we will do some of the promotion for you. And all of that is, how do we speak to, not only to our states, to our agencies, and then go the hierarchy, but even associations, because that's something that we don't name, which is they have us in this fantasy of you know, your job is to provide, your job is to be available, your job is to support children. Your job, like they give us this whole list of you know what is it that we need to do? And then they don't take into account burnout. They don't get into account that we need to do, and then they don't take into account burnout. They don't get into account cost of living. They don't take into account truly self-care, not the BS that they're selling us right now and how the high cost of, you know, just supplying a room, because, you're absolutely right, the majority of the times we are spending the little money that we get and still have to pay our bills, but the little money that we get on, you know, buying things in order for us to provide the services that we're providing.

Liliana:

So how do we advocate for anyone, one, all our listeners, right, like if you are in a position of power. What are the things that you can do? How can you advocate? Are we writing grants? How are we helping in order to do this? How do you go and get supervision when right now, there's a lot of barriers, also to get that credential, because it's really expensive? Can we say that out loud? Well, I just did, but this is our safe space.

Maria:

We can say what we need to.

Liliana:

But it's really expensive to become a RPTS. And now they have a lot of people who are eager and young and they have all these fantasies and they want to do it. There's like this process now, which makes sense in one hand of why they want to do it, but also it's creating barriers and we're pushing people away now because by the time that they can apply to become an RPTS, they're like this is insane, I'm out. We already burned them out in the process. Would you agree, disagree or you're neutral?

Laura:

Yeah, I'm not too familiar with the RPTS process. What does that process look like? It doesn't sound good, but what is that process?

Maria:

Well, I think you know we've because you're close to finishing your RPT and submitting.

Liliana:

you know we've cause you're you're close to finishing your RPT and submitting um Laura is that right?

Maria:

Yes, oh, my God, yeah, erase everything that I said. So once you've obtained the RPT, which is a huge process, um and and endeavor to be to begin with, then you wait, you have to I think it's at least two years continuing to provide play therapy, getting training you have to do specialized training for play therapy supervision and then you can apply for your RPTS. I can tell you that since starting RPTS um our academy to try to help people obtain their RPT Um, a lot of RPTSs that I am familiar with and friendly with um have stopped providing supervision um and have really kind of pulled back from doing supervision towards the credential Um, and that has more to do, I think, with the credentialing process. Rather than they don't want to supervise play therapists I think they still are very passionate about play, they believe in play, they want to see more providers use play therapy and if they feel like they can't help someone earn the credential because the credentialing process is cumbersome, can't help someone earn the credential because the credentialing process is cumbersome then they are more hesitant to become an like to maintain an RPTS.

Maria:

That is my small little pie slice of the world and that's what we've noticed. But I think supervision in general supervisors are becoming more and more I don't want to say leery, but skeptical and safe and are not taking on cases and supervisees that they are unsure about. And if you're not an RPTS or you don't have to have the credential right to be a good supervisor, but if you don't have the experience of working with children, you cannot effectively supervise someone who is working with children and it becomes this kind of domino effect of this lack of resources, lack of supervisors, and if there aren't supervisors then there aren't going to be child therapists.

Laura:

Yeah, right, right, yeah yeah.

Liliana:

And from a state level. Right, every state has different requirements for you to provide supervision. I know the agencies like don't turn, like they turn away and not pay attention to that. Universities do the same. I know out of a university here in Colorado who has just became an RPT recently and that person was supervising. It just became an RPT recently and that person was supervising and I'm like questions here. So there's a lot of places that, oh, there she is, oh, okay, and so there's a lot of places that don't pay attention to what are the state requirements Can you supervise in an agency, not just because and again we have had this discussion before another podcast which is, oh, you're the chosen one, go supervise without thinking of quality and ethical responsibility.

Liliana:

But when you're talking about I'm a child therapist and I'm working towards this training and I'm advocating so the systems, universities, agencies, so on and so forth have proper supervision so that they can help us with the burnout issue that we have in our field, so that they can help us with quality supervision, then that means that we have to be ethically responsible and get training and then get credentials in order for us to provide that service right. So all of that comes down to what are the systems and what are the barriers are being in place so that we can provide that, and something that the three of us here are passionate about is play therapy yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Maria:

So I'm wondering. So we've talked about some of the hardships and barriers and reasons why people don't want to work with children. I'm wondering if we could turn the corner a little bit and share why it's worth it. Why is it worth going through all of these barriers and jumping through these hoops to be a child therapist who utilizes play, to become a registered play therapist? If that is your goal, laura, what do you find rewarding about being a child therapist?

Liliana:

Yeah.

Laura:

Yeah. So my kind of journey to become a child therapist was kind of unexpected when I was in my master's program even before then, I said I don't want to work with kids, they're too dramatic, I have to work with the parents. So going through the program, even in my class for child therapy, I was like, okay, this is going to go one year out the other, I'm not going to use any of this for child therapy. I was like, okay, this is going to go one year out the other, I'm not going to, I'm not going to use any of this. And then my first job after I graduated was working with kids in community mental health because I thought, okay, it pays pretty well, it's good, it could be an experience. I got to get those kid hours done anyway. So it's kind of. It's just like kind of we'll just get through it, see how it is. And that was actually my first job working with kids, first job doing play therapy, play-based approaches. So I'm so glad I did that because I was able to.

Laura:

Kind of one of the reasons why I do like to work with kids and adolescents is because they're going to be kind of that safe, steady adult in their life.

Laura:

Because, especially working with kids and adolescents that are involved in the system parents are going through a divorce, parents lost their rights or whatnot it's a pretty traumatic kind of work experience in cases.

Laura:

But at least me being there in that role to see them laugh, to see them grow, to see them kind of really be a kid, really made a difference. They couldn't control what was going on at home. They couldn't control you know a lot of other situations, but they can be a kid with me, they can laugh with me, we kind of joke around and that was something that was really light to see. So that's one of the reasons why I still like to work with kids in adolescence so they can just have a space to be a kid, have space to kind of go at their pace. I'm not going to be their parent telling them kind of what to do oh, you need to do your chores. No, we're going to just play in session if we have to. That's something that they can control and that's a little piece of what they control. That's something I do like to work with them about.

Maria:

Yeah, I love that.

Maria:

I love that.

Maria:

It is rewarding, right, and I think too, I was joking with a clinician the other day who only works with adults and I said you know, you know, I think you need to write the child therapists of the world a thank you note, because those of us doing the work with the kids are going to make your future caseload a lot easier to manage.

Maria:

Right, because there is something to that that being able to work with them when they're young, when they're in the moments of the hardship, being a safe person for them in the beginning, often sets them to have this mold that therapy is a good thing. Therapy is a safe place. Therapy is somewhere I can go at any point in my life in the future if I need support, if I need help, because, I mean, I work with adults too and sometimes it's like I'm the first one that they've ever seen for mental health, and there's a lot of work that has to get done to get to the work of it, because there's been such stigma around mental health services, whereas kids don't care and, especially if you're a child therapist, you got cool toys and you want to play and be a goof with them. They are all over that, right yeah.

Laura:

Yeah, oh my God. And you see the adults too. Like a lot of the adults you work with adults, because I have some adults on my case too. It's about attachment, a lot of the stuff that happened to them, like whether it's trauma, happened in their childhood. So kind of working with the children, kind of at that place, when it's kind of going on, can really make a difference, kind of as they progress Absolutely.

Maria:

Absolutely, and if you've listened to any of our episodes, you know I'm a proponent for play for all ages, so I do play with my adult clients. I make as a presenter, I make my and I'm like kids are this most forgiving in our field than than the adults are right, it's those adults that are going to come in and judge you about why do you have a tiara on your head and have a magic wand in your hand. You know the kids are going to be. I am my queen baby.

Laura:

Yeah, yeah. But I think even adults tapping into kind of their own childhood too, like like one of my first classes, when I was teaching the child and adolescent class, I bought Legos, I bought Play-Doh, I bought like like kind of coloring utensils and kind of word searches and I had them play and it was like the feedback from them was really good because like they haven't they have, they forgot the smell of Lego, they forgot how creative they could be with Legos. So a lot of that is kind of tapping back into your own childhood, because if you can't kind of tap into that or kind of envision that, you're going to be kind of an awkward therapist in a way. So kind of getting back to that, so like a lot of that could be nostalgia. So what is one of the music though it is one of the songs you heard when you were a kid? What is something you did when you were a kid? And going back to that kind of route, because then you can kind of like know how to work with kids.

Liliana:

So I think that's also important too yeah, going back, not only the attachment right that you've been naming from the beginning, um, but also, like in that you're evaluating not only the trauma, but the emotional age, the chronological age. And where did we get stuck? What is it that we can do here? Like it's beautiful, everything that you're naming here. What was popping in my mind is anyone who's listening and wants to send gift cards to Laura so that she can go get supplies for her classes. Please feel free to do so. Let's help her out.

Maria:

But I think it speaks to right like there's additional costs involved when working, when doing play for any age. But in general, if you're working with children, there's more expenses generally for us, whether that's through supplies or education or supervision, and I do think that that's something that the systems need to look at and consider. I'm so thankful that you know the school that you're teaching at has um and that you've really taken this on as a passion and they're putting that out for your students, because I think that's where it starts right. If we can get them while in their program to consider working with kids, that sets us up for you know, being open to doing an internship site with kids, then you know taking that first job rather than you know the experience, like Laura, that you have and I had a very similar I was like I want you to just go try this out. Good luck, yeah.

Liliana:

By the way, my experience I think I have shared this with you, maria it was completely the opposite, laura. So I was actually in my master's and I knew I wanted to work with children. I was not interested in working with couples Funny I was not interested in working with families. Oh, the university is so hilarious and I was taking all the classes that I needed during my weekends in order to become a plate therapist by the time in my mind, by the time that I graduated from my master's, because I wanted to be prepared I'm always over prepared so my master's program was so hectic because it was during the week doing my master's and on my weekends looking for classes to be prepared. So most of my instructors had a hard time because I will carry my bag of toys in order to show and tell and in order for me in my internship. I was prep. I didn't need anything from anyone because I was prep. However, saying this, everything was out of pocket. I was doing everything because I knew I wanted to work with kids. I was spending my money, asking for gift cards for my birthday, mother's Day, any holiday. I was like give me a gift card too. And I was buying all those supplies that you're mentioning. So I think, the more that I hear, right, I'm like, oh, I'm deception, deception to the rule. I knew I wanted to do this from the beginning. Um, I'm laughing, laura, because now I'm working with couples and I'm working with parents. I'm like, okay, universe, I love your humor.

Liliana:

Um, I still work with kids, but, like, my forte now is, if I want to help the kid, I have to help the system. I need the system to see the child, their child, through a different lens. I need them to remember what was that like to be at that age? The struggles which we adults tend to forget. Age, the struggles which we adults tend to forget. So the majority of my work is actually reminding, like you just named earlier, reminding parents. Did you remember when, did you remember how you felt? So you know, you call it nostalgia, which is like that grief part, and nostalgia, which is like that grief part. You felt it, you know it, you suppress it and you push through. What if we go back and, instead of continue ignoring, we attend to and we go to this part of you, right, like it's this beautiful work now that I tend to do with systems and the whole system in order to hopefully help the child, so that I will not be the only attachment person Like. Let's work in a world to create more attachment people, attachifying people.

Maria:

Yeah.

Liliana:

And I will not run for president.

Laura:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I will not run for president. Yeah, yeah, counter. I have like major counter transference to couples, so I'm proud that you're doing the work with that, but I'm sure I know a lot of work does need to happen with the parents and the families, so I'll probably be on my path one day.

Liliana:

Oh, if you're avoiding it. The universe has a very, very sarcastic point of saying, like surprise here.

Laura:

Yeah, yeah, that'll come.

Liliana:

It will come or call us back.

Laura:

Yeah, I'll do a quick consultation.

Liliana:

Or a reunion, right Like let's come back and talk about it.

Maria:

Yes, when you, when you turn that corner, we'll, we'll be here. We can talk all about it, because you're not the only one. It happens to all of us. Yes, it really does. Laura, what a gift you are to your students and that program and your community. Um, you know, I I have had the pleasure of knowing you for a little bit now and I know that you've, you you're making big changes in these systems by saying no, this is important, and I'm going to start with my students and in my practice. So what a gift you are. Thank you so much for what you're doing.

Laura:

Yeah, yeah, no problem. And with the classes too, like I'm getting more and more students wanting to work with kids, so like. I feel like my work is kind of being completed with that, so, and I have some interest in being an RPT, so thank, you.

Liliana:

we do thank you because we do need you and, and I really mean it, listeners, if you feel like I can go buy a gift card, if, even if it's five dollars, twenty25. It doesn't matter. We're going to include Laura's information. Please, instead of that cup of coffee, instead of like that, you know, lunch at McDonald's I'm not saying no McDonald's, but like instead of like, let's send Laura gift cards so she can pay in it forward. I think that will be helpful, don't you agree?

Maria:

Maria, I think so, I think so, and we know every little bit helps right and especially for those trying to be advocates of change. It's not an easy process, yeah.

Liliana:

So thank you for making us aware of the amazing work that you're doing. Thank you, thank you for having me.

Liliana:

The barriers that are happening in our system and for all of you listeners, besides sending those gift cards to Laura, we're going to have her information below in case, if you want to give her a call and do a consultation, ask questions, pay her for her time. We are like, please, I cannot underestimate her for her time, and thank you again, laura, for being here and for making us aware of everything that you're doing. Thank you, thank you for having time and thank you again, laura, for being here and for making us aware of everything that you're doing. Thank you, thank you for having me Anytime.

Maria:

Thanks, laura, till next time. Thank you All, right Bye.

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Liliana Baylon, LMFT-S, RPT-S

Host
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Maria Laquerre-Diego, LMFT-S, RPT-S

Host
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Laura Brownstein

Guest