The current study sought to explore play therapists' barriers to engaging parents in their clinical work as well as understand the relationship between play therapist characteristics and their attitudes toward parents. Using a demographic questionnaire, Therapist Barriers to Engaging Parents (TBEP), and the Counseling Self- Estimate Inventory (COSE), 136 members of the Association for Play Therapy were surveyed to explore predictors to engaging with parents. Overall, play therapists reported low scores on barriers to engaging parents indicating play therapists are likely to report positive attitudes toward working with parents. Through two multiple regression analyses measuring the predictive value of self-efficacy subscales including Dealing with Difficult Clients and Counseling Process, play therapist identification as a parent, years of experience, and hours of training on parent engagement, both models demonstrated statistically significant findings with large effect sizes. This study found that play therapist self-efficacy was the strongest predictor of play therapists' attitudes toward parents accounting for approximately 80% of the variance in the models. Play therapists' identification as a parent as well as years of practice also predicted their barriers to engaging parents. Hours of training in parent engagement had no relationship to TBEP scores. Implications for practice include a need to provide play therapists with training experiences that involve working with parents directly rather than traditional training models, as well as attend to general counseling self-efficacy of play therapists. Implications for future research as well as limitations are discussed.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:unt.edu/info:ark/67531/metadc2137659 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | Line, Ahou Vaziri |
| Contributors | Ray, Dee C., Lemberger-Truelove, Matthew E., 1976-, Ceballos, Peggy, Balch, Jenifer |
| Publisher | University of North Texas |
| Source Sets | University of North Texas |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | Text |
| Rights | Public, Line, Ahou Vaziri, Copyright, Copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise noted. All rights Reserved. |
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