The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study shows how child and youth care professionals understand and apply activity-oriented interventions with children aged 6 to 11. Thirteen child and youth care professionals who employ activity-oriented interventions with children participated in semi-structured interviews. Interviews were transcribed and analyzed using an inductive content analysis approach. Eighteen emergent themes describe the participants’ perceptions of how activity-oriented interventions engage children, build therapeutic relationships and aid children’s learning. The findings in this study show how activity-oriented interventions fit with children’s development and are seen to be helpful in facilitating self-awareness and promoting change. Further, the findings highlight the lack of activity-oriented core training in Canadian undergraduate and graduate child and youth care programs. These finding suggest that there is a need for increased core curriculum in activity-oriented approaches, and also for future research in the effectiveness of activity-oriented interventions. / Graduate