Different professions and disciplines interact with children at various developmental, emotional, and educational levels. One of the most effective ways to build trust and facilitate understanding in these interactions is through play. Play provides a natural context in which children can express themselves, explore ideas, and build relationships in a non-threatening and enjoyable manner. For professionals working with children, the deliberate use of play can enhance both communication and outcomes.
Professionals such as social workers, teachers, psychologists, councellors, occupational therapists, speech and language therapists, and pediatric nurses often incorporate elements of play into their practice. For instance:
Social workers use play to build a relationship, to bring in awareness, sensation, and perception. Awareness is experienced with pleasure and by ways of play. In play different forms of play, techniques and awareness is applied. They realise their way of perceiving the world and adjustment to cope in further life experiences. In play their situations are clarified so that they can create not only adjustment but learn how to be good to themselves. After learned in play how to nurture themselves the practitioner helps them to exit safely in the real world awaiting them.
- Teachers use play-based learning to stimulate curiosity, creativity, and social interaction in educational settings.
- Child psychologists employ play therapy to help children express emotions and experiences that may be difficult to verbalize.
- Occupational therapists integrate play into therapy to develop fine motor skills, sensory processing, and coordination.
- Speech and language therapists use playful activities to encourage communication, vocabulary development, and articulation.
- Pediatric healthcare professionals may use play to reduce anxiety and help children understand medical procedures in an approachable way.
The Schoeman Working Model
The Schoeman Working Model (developed by Dr. Hannie Schoeman) is a prominent therapeutic framework rooted in Gestalt philosophy, widely utilized by social workers and clinical practitioners in South Africa for Gestalt play therapy with children. It offers a gentle, flowing, and structured process that prioritizes the client’s immediate foreground and lived experience.
Core Focus of the Model
- Holistic and Present-Centered: Based on the Gestalt premise that an individual is a whole entity (mind, body, and emotion) best understood in the “here and now”.
- Play as Language: Recognizes play as a child’s natural medium of expression, projection, and integration of trauma.
- Gentle Flow: Moves organically with what is most obvious and pressing for the child rather than forcing a rigid clinical agenda.
Key Dimensions in Practice
- Relationship Building: Establishing immediate safety, empathy, and a therapeutic alliance between the social worker and the child.
- Sensory Stimulation: Utilizing tactile media (such as clay, sand, or board games designed for assessment) to evoke expression and awareness.
- Discovering the Child’s Process: Observing how the child handles boundaries, projection, and emotional regulation in real time to foster self-awareness and healing.
The Gestalt intervention process was conceived from Gestalt philosophy by its founder and the course creator. Although some of its concepts were revised and adapted to work with children, the framework remains rooted in the core principles of Gestalt theory. While the intervention process is cyclical in nature, it has a clear starting point and endpoint. The process is outlined in seven phases, which will be explored in detail in Level 2.
By integrating play, these professionals add value to their practice – they make interactions more engaging, child-centered, and developmentally appropriate. Play becomes not just a leisure activity, but a therapeutic and educational tool that promotes holistic growth and well-being.
Different disciplines engage with traumatized children, each bringing unique skills and approaches to their practice. By integrating the power of play into their professional toolkit, practitioners can not only communicate more effectively with the child but also help them to rediscover and utilize their own potential – to become all that they can be. Drawing on the knowledge gained from their pre-studies and foundational training, course members are equipped to recognize and interpret the underlying meanings behind a child’s needs, wishes, and behaviors, both inside and outside the playroom.
Through play, the practitioner learns to understand and respect the individuality of each child in an authentic and natural way – free from expectation or pretence. The act of “just playing” reduces the need for interpretation or assumption, replacing it with a shared awareness rooted in the present moment. In this space of genuine connection, both practitioner and child are invited simply to be.
What a profound gift this is. Children always play for a reason – and in that moment of shared play, the practitioner offers the child something invaluable: the unspoken message and permission to exist, to feel, and to heal.