Embracing Integration: Why the RPT™ Credential Is More
Than the Sum of Its Hour Requirements | MEGAN CURTIS, MA, LPCC, NCC, APT CLINICAL COORDINATOR
The Registered Play Therapist™ (RPT™) credential has always represented more than the completion of a prescribed number of training, experience, and supervision hours. The RPT™ exists because dedicated play therapists came together to ensure there was a way to clearly identify clinicians who demonstrated competence in the specialty of play therapy. This eventually required the creation of a set of standards and a professional credential that has helped to take the Association for Play Therapy (APT) from a handful of enthusiastic play therapists to a booming community of countless clinicians and graduate students pursuing the RPT™ credential in unprecedentedly integrated ways.
RPT™ Credential Holders Lead the Way APT has observed an ongoing increase in the recognition of, and demand for, quality play therapy services; subsequently resulting in an increased demand for our credentials. Perhaps this play therapy boom was the inevitable result of a growing understanding of the developing brain and the importance of implementing developmentally appropriate interventions in childhood. However, I would argue that decades of play therapy advocacy and research from RPT™ credential holders have catapulted play therapy into a position of credibility at a time when children and families seem to need mental health support more than ever.
requirements could be accumulated. An applicant might complete substantial play therapy instruction at one point in their career, accrue clinical experience much later, and obtain supervision separately from those experiences may never have meaningfully informed one another. That is where integration matters.
Integration as a Model of Professional Development where continuing education provides new knowledge that is then brought consultation and supervision. Mental health professionals are already expected to meet this standard of professional growth throughout their careers. Clinical licensure does not represent the end of professional learning. State licensing boards require continuing education because competent practice requires clinicians to remain engaged with evolving knowledge, ethics, and standards. Similarly, maintaining the RPT™ credential requires ongoing play therapy continuing education.
APT applies that same spirit of continuous professional development to the process of earning the credential.
Integration in Practice The RPT™ Standards therefore organize instruction, clinical experience,
and supervision into a sequential three-phase process. Within each phase, applicants receive play therapy education, apply developing knowledge through direct play therapy experience, and engage in supervision as those competencies develop. Each phase must be completed before progressing to the next, while education continues throughout the training process.
This structure is intentional. Imagine learning a play therapy theory or skill and then immediately having opportunities to recognize it in the playroom, wrestle with its application, and bring questions or challenges into supervision. As the clinician repeats this process, every new round of education and training is being understood through the lens of growing integrated clinical experience. Education informs practice, practice creates questions, supervision helps make meaning of those questions, and further education deepens the clinician’s understanding.
It also helps explain why simply accumulating the minimum number of hours is not the ultimate objective. Section 06 explicitly notes that the distribution of hours should never be substituted for the clinical judgment of the applicant or supervisor. The hour totals may provide the structure; however, demonstrating competency remains the goal.
APT seeks to promote ethical play therapy practice informed by research, education, and training, while recognizing education grounded in seminal Program, in turn, is intended to establish national standards for competent play therapy practice and supervision while promoting professional accountability and ongoing professional growth.
Integration is where those principles become visible in the credentialing process.
APT recognizes that requiring applicants to accumulate their hours in an integrated, sequential manner may require more intentional planning than simply collecting qualifying experiences wherever they occur. But that intentionality serves an important purpose. Play therapy is an inherently relational clinical approach serving a particularly vulnerable population. A credential intended to signify advanced specialty competence should has been developed, applied, supervised, and strengthened over time. Ultimately, the RPT™ credential is not intended to document that an applicant has simply checked enough boxes related to play therapy. The RPT™ is intended to demonstrate the development of a well-rounded play therapy clinician. Section 06 of the RPT™ Credentialing Standards, Integration of Play Therapy Instruction, Experience, and Supervision, was designed with that distinction in mind.
www.a4pt.org | September 2026 | PLAYTHERAPY | 21
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