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MSc

Play Therapy

The MSc Play Therapy course is accredited by the British Association of Play Therapists (BAPT) and provides professional training in play therapy.

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Key Course Details

  • Start Date

    September

  • Location

    Newport

  • Campus Code

    C

Fees

  • Home students

    £1,695*

  • Full-time fees are per year. Part-time fees are per 20 credits.

The MSc Play Therapy course provides theoretical and practical knowledge relating to play therapy, drawing on the experience and skills of qualified play therapists, as well as other creative therapists. The course team is actively engaged in clinical practice, and related research and publishing.

DESIGNED FOR

You will develop the skills needed to practise as a professional in a responsible and demanding clinical environment.

Career Paths

  • Play Therapist
  • Clinical Supervisor of Play Therapy
  • Project Development Manager
  • Training and teaching play therapy, or therapeutic skills

Skills Taught

  • Child Centred Play Therapy
  • Reflective Practice
  • Research
  • Professional Practice

We make a difference in practice, not just on paper. Our courses are designed by people who offer jobs - and taught by people who have real work experience.

A student with shoulder-length bright pink hair listens intently to a fellow student while taking notes in a practice counselling session
A music therapy student concentrates while playing an old looking double bass in front of a white wall in a classroom at the Newport campus
A group of students are gathered around a sensory board containing sand and natural items like pinecones and wood in a therapeutic play classroom at USW

Course Highlights

Recognised and Accredited Qualification as a Play Therapist

This course leads to accreditation as a qualified Play Therapist by the British Association of Play Therapists.

Combine theory, skills and clinical practice of Play Therapy

Learning over the three years will involve experiential lectures and seminars, practical workshops and skills practice in triads.

Clinical Placements

Students attend placement in years 1, 2 and 3 in a variety of settings.

Access to practitioners in specialist areas through visiting lecturers

Students benefit from guest lecturers for specialist subjects across the three years of study.

Module Overview

The course covers theory, practice and personal development and supports the development of confident, competent and knowledgeable play therapy practitioners who are ready to engage in real world challenges and provide therapeutic support for children and their families.

Thursday attendance between 9am-4.30pm, mostly at Newport City Campus, with some online learning days. Students study 60 credits in Year One.

Child Development and Play
This module introduces students to the importance of the relationship between the child and primary carer(s) and studies the way in which Attachment Theory and Regulation Theory. 

Play Therapy Theory and Skills
The module introduces a Humanistic approach to therapy and how this might be applied to the development of Child Centred Play Therapy skills.  The module also quips students with the skills to work with children with mild to moderate adaptive and developmental challenges. 

Preparing for Clinical Practice
This module aims to enable students to apply their learning to setting up and maintaining play therapy interventions within a clinical setting; including adherence to ethical and legal frameworks relevant to Play Therapy practice.  

Thursday attendance between 9am-4.30pm, mostly at Newport City Campus, with some online learning days. Students study 60 credits in Year Two.

Evidence Based Play Therapy Practice  
This module aims to extend students abilities to put into practice setting up and maintaining safe an ethical professional play therapy practice, whilst using a range of child centred and attachment focused models and approaches.

Working with Children and Families  
In this module students will consider psychological roles within families, and factors which foster psychological health for children. Students will study play based therapeutic models for working with families, such as Filial Therapy, Theraplay and Child Parent Relationship Therapy. 

Friday attendance between 9am-4.30pm, mostly at Newport City Campus, with some online learning days. Students study 60 credits in Year Three.

Evaluating Advanced Play Therapy Practice  
This module will equip students to conduct a comprehensive review of the literature pertaining to a study of relevance to current play therapy practice. 

Teaching will equip students to plan and present a proposal for a study of relevance to current play therapy practice.  

Advanced Play Therapy Theory and Skills 
This module aims to enable students to develop as reflective practitioners with ability to apply in depth understanding of therapeutic use of self to their own practice analysis. Students will also be prepared to work with complex cases that involve children living with the impact of trauma, neglect or abuse in early childhood. Students are required to complete clinical placements as part of this module.

Course Highlights

How you’ll learn

Learning and assessment reflect the core skills of a play therapist and support professional and personal development. Students attend traditional style lectures, along with seminars, experiential sessions and skills practice in triads. Students also have clinical group and group process. 

Assessment

Assessments include essays, literature reviews, presentations and skills assessments.

Teaching Staff

Placements

The MSc Play therapy teaching team supports students in identifying suitable placement opportunities. Students have found placements in a variety of settings, including schools, family centres, charitable organisations and multidisciplinary agencies.

Facilities

Therapeutic Studies students have access to the latest learning technologies, facilities and equipment, including excellent designated facilities in the USW Therapies Kegie Suite. These include a designated family room and play therapy room, and access to counselling rooms and art studios for experiential practice.

Accredited by BAPT

Careers and Employability

Careers Support

As a USW student, you will have access to advice from the Careers and Employability Service throughout your studies and after you graduate.

This includes: one-to-one appointments from faculty based Career Advisers, in person, over the phone or even on Skype and through email via the "Ask a Question" service. We also have extensive online resources for help with considering your career options and presenting yourself well to employers. Resources include psychometric tests, career assessments, a CV builder, interview simulator and application help. Our employer database has over 2,000 registered employers targeting USW students, you can receive weekly email alerts for jobs.

Our Careers service has dedicated teams: A central work experience team to help you find relevant placements; an employability development team which includes an employability programme called Grad Edge; and an Enterprise team focused on new business ideas and entrepreneurship.

ENTRY REQUIREMENTS

Typical qualification requirements:

  • A degree, which is also a professional qualification (such as teaching-fully qualified, social work, occupational therapy or paediatric nursing), plus a minimum of two years post-qualifying work experience in the qualified discipline. 
  • Or, a degree in a relevant area (such as psychology, childhood studies, early-years development, social science), plus a minimum of five years’ experience working face to face with children, young people and their families of which the majority of this experience should be undertaken after graduation.
  • Two references uploaded with the application - the references must be on letter headed paper or the referee can send them direct from a professional/work email address to [email protected].

Additional requirements include:

  • An Enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check on the Child Workforce and Child Barring List and subscription to the DBS Update Service is required. (Overseas equivalent required for non-uk applicants).

  • Please note that we do not accept deferred entry on to this course.

  • Applicants who meet the entry requirements for the course will be invited to interview.

International applications welcomed:

We welcome international applications with equivalent qualifications of our entry requirements. For more details related to your country of residence please view our dedicated country pages.

English language requirements

International applicants will need to have achieved an overall of IELTS 6.5 with a minimum of 6.5 in each component or equivalent.

Equivalents can be located on our English Language pages.

If you have previously studied through the medium of English IELTS might not be required, please visit our country specific page for further details. If your country is not featured, please contact us.

If you do not meet the English entry criteria please visit our Pre-Sessional course pages.

Contextual offers

We may make you a lower offer based on a range of factors, including your background (where you live and the school or college that you attended, for example), your experiences and individual circumstances (as a care leaver, for example). This is referred to as a contextual offer, and we receive data from UCAS to support us in making these decisions.

USW prides itself on its student experience and we support our students to achieve their goals and become a successful graduate. This approach helps us to support students who have the potential to succeed and who may have faced barriers that make it more difficult to access university.

 

We're here to help

Whether you a have a question about your course, fees and funding, the application process or anything else, there are plenty of ways you can get in touch, and we'd love to talk to you. You can contact our friendly admissions team by phone, email or chat to us online.

 

Fees and Funding

UK Part-time Fee

£1,695

per 20 credits*

Further Information

Studying at university is one of the most significant investments you'll ever make. Whilst you’re studying, you’ll have two main financial obligations – tuition fees and living costs. There’s lots of financial help available from the University of South Wales and external funding sources, that may provide loans (which have to be paid back) and grants, scholarships and bursaries (that don't).

*Full-time fees are per year. Part-time fees are per 20 credits. Once enrolled, the fee is anticipated to remain at the same rate throughout the duration of your study on this course except as described below.

Please be aware that we may increase the maximum fee for home students on full-time undergraduate courses only where the Welsh Government increases the permitted level of inflation of fees. Fees for all students (including part-time, postgraduate and international students) may be amended in accordance with our applicable Fees and Debt Management Policy.  We will ensure that students are given clear, intelligible, unambiguous and timely information about our courses and costs in good time, ahead of the next academic year.

 

Fees and Funding Scholarships and Busaries Alumni Discount

Additional Costs

As a student of USW, you’ll have access to lots of free resources to support your study and learning, such as textbooks, publications, online journals, laptops, and plenty of remote-access resources. Whilst in most cases these resources are more than sufficient in supporting you with completing your course, additional costs, both obligatory and optional, may be required or requested for the likes of travel, memberships, experience days, stationery, printing, or equipment.

* Obligatory

Clinical supervision is required at a ratio of 1 hour of supervision to 2 clinical practice hours throughout each clinical placement.

Cost: £35-£45

Personal Therapy is an essential requirement - 20 hours in each year.

Cost: £35-50

Year 1 student BAPT membership is £48, in years 2 and 3 it is £38 per year to renew membership. 

Cost: £38-£48

 Students will be expected to pay for a DBS or certificate of good behaviour from their home country. The DBS fee includes £49.50 for the enhanced DBS certificate, the Post Office Administration fee and the online administration fee

Cost: £64.74

Subscription required for each year of the course for a yearly fee of £16. Please note the service has to be joined within 30 days of receipt of your enhanced DBS certificate

Cost: £16

Required Years 1-3

Cost: £45-£100

Students have to fund their own travel costs to their placement.

Costs vary, depending on location. 

Students have to fund their own travel costs to their infant observation placement.

Costs vary, depending on location.  

Students are required to have a device in which to video-record play therapy sessions. They can use a video recorder, phone or tablet. The student will need to purchase this if they do not already have one. 

Students may need to purchase play materials for use on placement or in skills practice 

University Quality Assurance

At USW, we regularly review our courses in response to changing patterns of employment and skills demand to ensure we offer learning designed to reflect today’s student needs and tomorrow’s employer demands.

If during a review process course content is significantly changed, we’ll write to inform you and talk you through the changes for the coming year. But whatever the outcome, we aim to equip our students with the skillset and the mindset to succeed whatever tomorrow may bring. Your future, future-proofed.

Life at USW

Halls are a big part of your student experience and there’s accommodation at all three of our locations. If you don’t want to live near the campus, there are great transport links to keep you connected.

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Student Life
University of South Wales Newport Campus.
Newport Campus
A double room at our Pontypridd accommodation featuring a large window.
Accommodation

How to apply

There is an online application process for this course. Please choose the application form for your preferred start date and mode of study (i.e. full-time or part-time).

International admissions

Please see our international admissions advice for further information about how to apply as a prospective international student.

Related Courses

Creative and Therapeutic Arts - BA (Hons) Learn more
Art Psychotherapy - MA Learn more
Working with Adult and Young People who Offend - MSc Learn more
Behaviour Analysis and Therapy - MSc Learn more

Next Steps

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