Developmentally appropriate play therapy with Asian American children

Few community organizations exist for serving the mental health and wellness needs of Asian Americans. One such organization, the Transcultural Wellness Center (TWC), located in Sacramento, California, provides a breadth of services to Asian and Pacific Islander populations and their communities, but lacks programming that focuses on young children. The purpose of this project was to construct an in-service training on developmentally appropriate and culturally sensitive play therapy with Asian American children. A two-hour pilot training was conducted at the TWC on Tuesday, November 10, 2009. In attendance were 20 persons, including four supervisors, nine clinicians and five counselor specialists. Feedback from a TWC evaluation tool and a constructed questionnaire indicated that the participants felt the training was helpful and would like to continue learning about play therapy with the Asian and Pacific Islander population.