Using healing play to reduce trauma-related symptoms of school-age children a single-case research design

Abstract

Adversity is ubiquitous and occurs across the lifespan. When adults encounter trauma-related experiences, they often use words to express themselves. Children, on the other hand, use play and toys to express all these emotions that adults go through. Children in Ghana are expected to attend school, and the school is expected to provide psycho-social support to enhance their growth. However, despite GES’s good intentions, public schools in Ghana do not have enough counselling-related support for students. It is in this vein that this study set out to explore if a five-session Child Directed Healing play therapy (CDHPT) could help children overcome their adversity-related experiences. CDHPT is a training given to both professional and nonprofessional adults to help children process their grief and frustration in a safe environment. In CDHPT, unique set of local toys are used to help children work through their trauma experiences. Using a single-subject research design within the quantitative approach, four basic school students were purposively selected from screened students. The ACEs questionnaire and Youth Outcome Questionnaire were used as instruments for screening and for pre-and-post assessment respectively. Results indicated that each of the participants had reduced indices between pre-test and post-test. These results, though exploratory, provide evidence that if willing and able adults are trained to support school counsellors, children will be able to get the psycho-social support needed in the school environment to help them effectively process their trauma-related experiences.