Play Therapy Qualifications | What Parents & Schools Should Check
Understanding Play Therapy Qualifications: What Should Parents and Schools Look For?
If you are looking for a Play Therapist for your child or considering commissioning Play Therapy within a school, qualifications can quickly become confusing.
You may see terms such as:
Play Therapist
Registered Play Therapist
Certified Play Therapist
Therapeutic Play Practitioner
Therapeutic Play Skills
Counsellor
Creative Therapist
Child Therapist
They can sound similar, but they do not necessarily mean the same thing.
So how do you know whether someone is appropriately qualified to work therapeutically with a child?
I think parents and schools should feel comfortable asking questions.
Working therapeutically with children carries significant responsibility. You have every right to understand someone’s training, professional registration and the standards they work to.
Is Play Therapist a protected title?
This is an important starting point.
Play Therapy sits within an area of health and care practice where professional registration is not the same as statutory regulation.
For example, professions such as medicine and nursing have statutory regulators and practitioners must be registered to practise.
Play Therapy operates differently.
This makes checking someone’s professional credentials particularly important.
What is a Professional Standards Authority Accredited Register?
The Professional Standards Authority, usually shortened to PSA, independently assesses voluntary registers covering a range of health and care occupations.
A register receiving PSA accreditation has demonstrated that it meets the PSA’s standards.
These standards cover areas including public protection, governance, complaints procedures, education and training requirements and the standards expected from registered practitioners.
The PSA does not personally qualify individual Play Therapists.
Instead, it assesses the organisation maintaining the professional register.
For parents and schools, this provides another level of reassurance.
Both the British Association of Play Therapists register and Play Therapy UK’s Register of Play and Creative Arts Therapists currently hold PSA Accredited Register status.
What is the difference between Play Therapy and therapeutic play?
The words sound very similar, which understandably creates confusion.
Therapeutic play can be extremely valuable.
Teachers, family support workers and other professionals can use play therapeutically to support children’s development, communication and emotional wellbeing.
But this does not automatically make someone a qualified Play Therapist.
BAPT makes a similar distinction in its professional information, describing therapeutic play as a broader approach that can be facilitated by people who are not therapists.
Play Therapy involves a therapeutic relationship, professional training, clinical practice, ethical responsibilities and ongoing supervision.
That distinction matters, particularly when a child has complex emotional needs or significant life experiences.
What should I check?
If I were choosing someone to work therapeutically with my own child, these are some of the questions I would ask.
What is your Play Therapy qualification?
Don’t be afraid to ask this directly.
There is a significant difference between completing a short course introducing therapeutic play and completing professional postgraduate Play Therapy training involving supervised clinical practice.
Ask what qualification the practitioner holds and what that qualification enables them to practise as.
Are you on a professional register?
Ask which professional register they belong to.
Then check it.
Professional registers should allow parents, schools and commissioners to verify whether someone is currently registered.
Being registered also means the practitioner is accountable to the professional standards and ethical requirements of that organisation.
Is your register PSA accredited?
Look for the Professional Standards Authority Accredited Register Quality Mark.
PSA accreditation doesn’t mean every practitioner on every accredited register has completed identical training.
Different professional bodies can have different training pathways.
What it tells you is that the organisation maintaining the register has been independently assessed against the PSA’s standards.
Do you receive regular clinical supervision?
This is one of the questions I would always ask.
Clinical supervision is an essential part of safe therapeutic practice.
A Play Therapist regularly takes their work to a suitably experienced clinical supervisor.
This allows the therapist to reflect on the therapeutic process, safeguarding, boundaries, relationships, ethical questions and their own responses to the work.
Supervision is not something therapists only need when they are struggling.
It is part of responsible professional practice.
I have been practising for many years and I still have supervision.
Experience does not remove the need to reflect on your work.
Do you have appropriate insurance?
A therapist working independently should have appropriate professional indemnity and public liability insurance.
Professional registers can also have specific requirements around insurance.
This is something schools commissioning external therapists should check as part of their normal due diligence.
What safeguarding arrangements are in place?
Anyone working therapeutically with children should have clear safeguarding procedures.
Ask about their DBS status.
Ask who their safeguarding lead is if they work within an organisation.
Ask what happens if a child discloses something that raises a safeguarding concern.
A child needs confidentiality within therapy, but confidentiality is not absolute.
Therapists need to understand when information must be shared to protect a child.
How do you work with parents and schools?
Play Therapy does not happen in isolation from the child’s wider life.
There should be clarity about referrals, consent, confidentiality, reviews and communication.
Parents should understand what information they will receive.
Schools should understand what information will and will not be shared.
The child’s therapeutic relationship needs protecting while appropriate adults remain involved in the wider process.
A good therapist should be able to explain how this works before therapy begins.
What happens if I have a concern?
Hopefully you will never need to use a complaints procedure.
But one should exist.
Ask which ethical framework the therapist follows and what you can do if you become concerned about their practice.
Professional accountability matters.
Why supervision matters so much
As a Clinical Supervisor as well as a Play Therapist, I see supervision as much more than checking whether somebody is following procedures.
Therapeutic work affects the therapist too.
A child might reject you.
They might try desperately to please you.
They might want you to rescue them.
They might become angry with you.
They might recreate patterns within the therapeutic relationship that are happening elsewhere in their life.
The therapist needs somewhere to think about this.
Supervision provides that space.
It helps us ask:
What belongs to the child?
What belongs to me?
What is happening within this relationship?
Am I maintaining appropriate boundaries?
Am I trying to rescue?
Am I making assumptions?
Is there something I haven’t noticed?
Do I need to take action?
Good supervision protects the child, supports the therapist and strengthens the quality of the therapeutic work.
Qualifications are the beginning, not the end
Completing professional training is an important milestone.
It isn’t the point where learning stops.
Therapists should continue developing their knowledge throughout their careers.
This includes continuing professional development, reading current research, safeguarding updates, supervision and reflecting on their practice.
I have worked with children and families for more than 25 years.
I still reflect.
I still use supervision.
In fact, experience has probably made me more aware of how much there is to think about when working therapeutically with children.
What should parents and schools take away from this?
You don’t need to become an expert in Play Therapy qualifications before finding support for a child.
You do need to ask sensible questions.
Check the therapist’s qualification.
Check their professional registration.
Check their supervision.
Check their safeguarding arrangements.
Check their insurance.
Understand how confidentiality works.
And ask how they will involve you appropriately while protecting the child’s therapeutic space.
Most qualified therapists will welcome these questions.
You are trusting someone with an important relationship in your child’s life.
It is reasonable to know who that person is, how they have been trained and who holds them professionally accountable.
At The Spiral Tree Therapy Service, I am happy to explain my qualifications, professional registration, supervision arrangements and the way I work before therapy begins.
If you are a parent wondering whether Play Therapy might be appropriate for your child, or a school considering Play Therapy provision, you are welcome to get in touch for an initial conversation.
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