The impact of brief play therapy training on the emotional awareness of care workers in a young children's residential care setting in Australia

This paper is an account of, and reflection on, the author's six-month ethnographic study of a residential care home for severely traumatised and abused children in Australia. During the stay she designed and offered a short six-day course for the care staff and foster carers in the use of play for emotional and therapeutic support. Prior to this, the dominant orientation of the staff was to a behaviourist model and the opportunity they had to learn about therapeutic play was positive. Fieldwork of deep cultural immersion took place with the principle method of participant observation. In addition an in-depth interview with a key education staff member and shadow tutor was conducted to further explore the value of a short training course for care staff and foster carers in providing emotional and therapeutic support for children through play. Main findings suggest that raising awareness of play and its therapeutic value was beneficial to carers and children. The unexpected main finding was that spontaneous group play observed and recounted by the shadow tutor revealed to her an in-depth understanding by the young children of the prevailing culture within the setting.