Psychotherapy continues to move towards an “outcome-focused” environment, making it difficult for play therapists to stay Child-Centered and trust the process. Child-Centered Play Therapists (CCPT) find themselves pressured to be outcome-focused and “do” more to “fix” the symptoms, even when it is counter to the CCPT theoretical orientation. The Child-Centered approach states, “when you focus on the symptom you lose sight of the child,” which is in direct conflict with symptom-focused goals often required by managed care and other providers (Landreth).

Child-Centered Documentation is a unique framework that allows Child-Centered Play Therapists to quantify symptoms for managed care requirements while staying true to the theoretical underpinnings of Child-Centered Play Therapy (CCPT) theory.

Implementing the Child-Centered Documentation framework will:

• Increase your understanding of progress observed in CCPT sessions
• Provide you the language to communicate to parents and other providers
• Allow you to make clear and meaningful treatment plans and clinical documentation.

Child-Centered Documentation: Treatment Planning and Assessing Progress is essential training for those practicing CCPT to learn a theoretical model and application for treatment planning that utilizes symptom-focused goals often externally required while honoring the theoretical foundations of CCPT. This framework allows participants to create meaningful treatment plans that help assist Child-Centered Play Therapists in assessing and understanding progress in each session and document progress in each clinical progress note.

This training is both theoretical and practical and will include a toolkit of documentation resources that will help you build Child-Centered Documentation Treatment Plans and Progress Notes.

While this 9-hour workshop will give an overview of CCPT theory, it is not the focus. As such, this workshop assumes a basic understanding of CCPT theory and practice. Participants will be invited to engage with peers in breakout rooms to apply the principles to enhance learning.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify key ethical and legal aspects of documentation for play therapists
• Describe the primary theory behind Child-Centered Play Therapy
• Describe inherent theoretical challenges of creating symptom-focused goals when using the Child-Centered Play Therapy modality
• Demonstrate an understanding of the relationship between symptom goals and internal growth goals
• Identify four kinds of indicators of progress in Child-Centered Play Therapy
• Apply principles of the Child-Centered Documentation framework to clinical examples by creating a Child-Centered Treatment Plan
• Apply principles of the Child-Centered Documentation framework to assess progress in weekly Progress Notes
• Demonstrate an understanding of using stages in play therapy to assess progress
• Identify common themes in play therapy

What’s included in the Child-Centered Documentation Toolkit:

• Access to Case Conceptualization Templates that help you organize client information
• Extensive Objectives & Interventions Example List that are ready to be incorporated into your treatment plan
• Editable Treatment Plan Template and Progress Note Template based on the Child-Centered Documentation framework
• A 14-day trial of CCD Treatment Plan Generator* and CCD Progress Note Generator* that you can use to practice implementing the CCD framework.  (*This trial version is for training purposes and therefore not HIPAA-compliant. Please note that CCD Generators are not required to learn or implement the CCD framework.)

General Outline:

Session 1: Introduction and the CCD Treatment Plan – 3 hours 

• Overview of CCPT theory and the basis of the CCD framework 
• Case conceptualization using the CCD framework 
• The CCD Treatment Plan 

Session 2: Assessing Progress – 3 hours 

• Discuss four ways to identify progress in play therapy sessions 
• Discuss ways to conceptualize and assess progress in play therapy sessions 

Session 3: Progress Notes and Integration – 3 hours 

• Discuss documenting each clinical session for progress notes using this framework.
• Discuss implementing this framework when communicating with caregivers and other providers 
• Integrate framework  
• Q&A/Discussion