their own emotions into play sessions. Play therapists facilitate positive parent-child connections through strategies such as “I love you rituals” (Bailey, 2000), Theraplay®


parent relationship therapy (CPRT; Landreth & Bratton, 2019).


Implementing TI CCPT with children who have experienced IPV during COVID-19 provides a safe space for children to develop an accurate emotional understanding of their experiences. Children are able to adjust their self-concept from, “This is my fault, and I am helpless,” to “Even in scary situations, I am strong and I know ways to help myself be safe and  pandemic, play therapists can take comfort in seeing children become resilient.


Self-Care Strategies for Play Therapists Play therapists can ensure their own resilience by implementing self-care strategies. This is crucial due to their double challenge of preventing vicarious traumatization from their client’s experiences of IPV and play therapists’ own life disruption due to the pandemic. Helpful self-care strategies are setting boundaries between work and home; healthy eating; exercise; peer supervision; meditation; and taking mindful self- compassion breaks (e.g., Blocker Turner, 2019; Goffena, 2019; Goodyear Brown & Stauffer, 2019; Neff, 2021; Rae, 2019; Shelby, 2019; Thompson & Sears-Taylor, 2019).


References Play Therapy. The Random House Publishing Group. Baggerly, J. (2013). Trauma informed child centered play therapy [Video]. Microtraining Associates and Alexander Street Press.


Baggerly, J. (2021, April 9-10). Play therapy heroes for the corona-virus pandemic and national crises. Texas Association for Play Therapy Conference. Virtual.


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    witnesses of domestic violence. In L. A. Reddy, T. M. Files-Hall, & C. E. Schaefer (Eds.), Empirically based play interventions for children.       


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 Play therapy with children in crisis: Individual, group, and family treatment Guilford Press.


   COVID-19 and violence against women: What the health sector/system can do. https://www. who.int/reproductivehealth/publications/emergencies/COVID-19- VAW-full-text.pdf


ABOUT THE AUTHOR


Jennifer Baggerly, PhD, LPC-S, RPT-S is a Professor of Counseling and Play Therapy at the University of North Texas at Dallas and a Licensed Professional Counselor Supervisor and a Registered Play Therapist Supervisor at Kaleidoscope Behavioral Health in Flower Mound, Texas. jennifer.baggerly@untdallas.edu


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