Winter 2012 Partnership Magazine - College of Education Home ...

7th Annual Fall Play Therapy Conference
Techniques,
Techniques,
Techniques
Minnesota State University, Mankato, hosted another large crowd for the 7th Annual Play Therapy
Conference in the Centennial Student Union on September 23, 2011. Over one hundred students and
professionals from Minnesota, North Dakota, and Wisconsin gathered to learn about research-based
play therapy techniques from one of the field’s leaders.
Sueann Kenney-Noziska, founder and owner of the Play Therapy Corner in La Mesa, New Mexico,
specializes in using play therapies in clinical practice. Her new book, Techniques-Techniques-Techniques:
Play-Based Activities for Children, Adolescents, & Families, compiles many of her own play therapy
interventions along with supporting clinical, theoretical, and empirical research.
Her seminar covered eight treatment areas, from assessment and emotional expression, coping skills
and ADHD, to self-esteem, interpersonal boundaries, sexual abuse, and termination. Consistently transitioning
between lecture, case examples, and experiential exercises, Kenney-Noziska kept participants engaged and
fostered a collaborative learning community throughout the day.
She brought her own intervention materials and set them up in clusters around the room, creating a
playful, colorful atmosphere while taking the group through their uses and possibilities. She spoke and
moved confidently, an ease likely acquired over many years as an active leader and practitioner at the
state and national levels for the Association for Play Therapy.
Regular attendees noticed Kenney-Noziska’s thoughtful and structured approach to the workshop.
Registered Play Therapist-Supervisor, Barbara Skodje-Mack, has returned many years since the first
conference to brush up on relevant techniques she can apply to her own practice in Mankato. Recently,
she began doctoral work in the Counseling & Student Personnel department and appreciated the
speaker’s inclusion of empirical and theoretical research foundations to each practice.
Another Mankato professional, Sara Mennen of the Mankato Marriage & Family Therapy Center,
comes each year to enjoy the kind of collaboration Kenney-Noziska employed. “It’s not often that
there’s enough time for play therapists to come together,” she said. “I leave each conference with new
techniques, or at least new conceptions of things I already knew.”
Winter 2012 Partnership
> The conference is
sponsored by Minnesota
State Mankato’s Academy
for Child and Family
Studies, the Department
of Counseling & Student
Personnel, the Center
for School-University
Partnerships, and the
College of Education.
> As an Approved Center
for Play Therapy Education
through the Association
for Play Therapy, the
Academy for Child and
Family Studies offers this
annual conference as well
as graduate training in the
Department of Counseling
& Student Personnel,
clinical supervision, and
graduate credit options for
attendees.
Both Mennen and Skodje-Mack practice play therapy regularly, mostly with kids but also with many adults, as a way of relieving
pressures on talking about themselves and helping them achieve better expressions and insights at the same time. They participate in each
conference because empirical techniques and theories are steadily bringing more credibility to play therapies and their impacts on children
and families.
Next year, Dr. John Seymour, Minnesota State Mankato’s expert in the field, brings Dr. Eric Green to present on Jungian Play Therapy with
children. Until then, participants have a chance to strengthen their impact on clients’ well-being with Sueann Kenney-Noziska’s techniques.
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