Brighter Futures Counseling, PLLC offers training opportunities for professionals in the counseling field as well as other professionals who work with children and families. Training may be provided by Brighter Futures Counseling, PLLC employees or by guest speakers that have been hand-picked to specifically speak on requested topics. Please review our available trainings below and don’t hesitate to email our office with additional questions or requests!
Trauma Informed Play with Youth and Sand Play
September 21st and 22nd
Speaker: Dr. Erik Green, PhD, LPC-S, RPT-S, SP
Presenter Bio: Eric Green, Ph.D., is a part-time faculty associate at the Johns Hopkins University School of Education in Baltimore, MD. He also maintains a private-practice in child and family psychotherapy and is a consultant for Better Options Initiative in Lafayette, LA. Dr. Green is the author of four recent books, including “No Child Forgotten,” “The Handbook of Jungian Play Therapy,” “Integrating Play Therapy and Expressive Arts with Children and Adolescents,” and “Counseling Families.” He has published over 100 peer-reviewed and other scholarly works and is a regularly invited keynote speaker at child mental health conferences across the U.S., and internationally, including giving recent speeches in Mexico, Australia, Canada, Israel, New York City, Washington, DC, New Orleans, and Hawaii. His disaster mental health work was featured in the CNN television documentary, “Children of the Storm.” He is the recent recipient of the “School Counseling Professor of the Year Award 2015” (Indiana School Counselor Association).
Program Description
Day1: This workshop will blend cognitive behavioral principles with play therapy for clinicians to help traumatized children self-heal. Dr. Green will present his evidence-informed model of child-trauma treatment, including play-based interventions for clinicians to utilize in the consulting room, some of which may include coloring mandalas, narrative therapy, play therapy, and relaxation/mindfulness. Participants will have multiple opportunities for voluntary
Day 2: This workshop will provide a basic overview of sandplay therapy with children, as originated by Dora Kalff. Sandplay is the therapeutic use of sand, water, and miniatures that accesses a child’s unconscious material through the creation of sand pictures at regular intervals over time. Through this analytic play process, a child’s psychological development is observable and guided by an unconscious totality toward the integration of opposites that leads to transformation. The workshop will address ‘individuation’ that naturally occurs when children engage in the multi-sensory sandplay process with a trained therapist. The presenter will provide illustrated clinical applications of sandplay with diverse populations. Finally, participants will have opportunities to voluntarily engage in symbol activities.