This course provides knowledge and skill competencies to facilitate play therapy as a therapeutic intervention for children and families. This course provides students with the philosophical basis for play therapy, including a review of the history of play therapy, how to develop a relationship with a child through a (child-centered, Prescriptive, Adlerian, Ecosystemic, etc.) theoretical framework, and an introduction to various theoretical applications and play therapy best practices. Students will become familiar with play therapy micro-skills, the purpose and application goals of play therapy, therapeutic stages and themes, ethical issues, cross cultural/ diversity implications, basic developmental and neurological implications, treatment planning in play therapy including development of treatment goals and assessment of treatment progress and applications to a variety of populations and therapeutic contexts.

This course provides advanced knowledge and skill competencies in play therapy as a therapeutic intervention for children and families. This course provides students with learning on special topics such as divorce, incest, family death, illness, ethnic and racial issues, and cultural impacts through a variety of assessment measures, such as individual supervision in play therapy, group supervision in play therapy, peer consultation in play therapy, reflection papers, etc. This course prepares students to provide play therapy services in school and community settings.

This course introduces theories of counseling and psychotherapy to prepare students to conceptualize problems and respond with appropriate, evidence-based interventions and techniques. Students will become familiar with the origin, key concepts, and interventions and techniques of each of the theories presented. Students will develop an awareness of how counseling theories drive the treatment process and apply theories to diverse case studies. A major focus of this course is to support students as they develop their personal theoretical orientation.

Students in this course have the opportunity to increase their awareness, knowledge, skills, and advocacy related to working with clients from a multicultural perspective. Students foster self-understanding of their own cultural-identity development, biases, stereotypes, values, and strengths while gaining self-awareness of the effects of power, privilege, and marginalization within the counseling relationship. Further, students can gain knowledge of various issues within diversity. Students explore various theories of multicultural counseling and the role of social justice and advocacy in counseling.

Students in this course are provided with the opportunity to develop practical skills in career and vocational assessment as well as functional knowledge of how career assessment can assist in the exploration and understanding of the interrelationship among work, family, and life roles. They examine major sources of career and work information available on the Internet as well as through printed material and computer-based guidance systems. Gaining practical career counseling experience, students administer, score, and interpret printed and computer-based assessments of career interests, beliefs, and values. Students learn how to integrate career development theory and assessment results with career clinical interventions. They also examine clinical and assessment issues, devoting attention to computer-based applications and multicultural implications.