MA Early Childhood Careers: Hospital Play Therapist

Have you ever considered becoming a hospital play therapist?

When it comes to children’s mental health services, play therapy plays a major role in reducing anxiety and helping children deal with trauma. By working as a play therapist, you’ll be helping the next generation manage a range of emotional and mental health issues.

If this sounds like the right career for you, there’s nowhere better to begin your journey than the University of Bolton. We are one of the best universities for early childhood education in the UK. In fact, we rank No.1 in the UK for Student Satisfaction in Childhood and Youth Studies.*

Considering becoming a play therapist? Here are just some of the reasons that make it a fantastic career!

You’ll be making a huge difference

As a hospital play therapist, it will be your job to help children understand their illness and treatment. Depending on your training level, you can either work as a play assistant or a health play specialist.

As one of the most effective children’s mental health services, play therapy is a great way of bringing joy and happiness to kids suffering from illness or disease, yet it can sometimes be overlooked. A playtime is a therapeutic tool that can improve a child’s confidence, enhance their creativity, and even teach them how to form healthy relationships with others.

Not only will you be making a difference to individual kids, but you can drastically improve communication between families, helping parents and children reconnect, understand one another, and enjoy a better family bond as a result.

Your work changes future outcomes

As well as helping children and supporting parents in their challenging health recovery journeys, your work actually goes a lot further. With most play therapy, you’ll see the results first-hand, making it easy to enjoy excellent job satisfaction.

But the long-term gain of children’s mental health services, play therapy and other types of youth wellbeing services, is being able to change future outcomes. Through play therapy, you can teach children to be resilient and to have a positive outlook, something that has been proven by science to improve physical health and rehabilitation!

By reducing their stress and anxiety, you can encourage a better quality of life. For both terminal patients and those with a chance of full recovery, this can make an incredible difference.

There’s room for career progression

With play therapy, you’ll find a number of ways you can progress. A childhood studies master's could help you fast-track your career, presenting more job prospects and higher earning potential. Many graduates go on to work as play therapists, and later have opportunities to move into training other therapists, working in clinical supervision roles, or becoming lecturers.

Another option is to move into a consultative role, providing specialised services to your local community. It’s also possible for some professionals to take different directions in their career later on, such as training to become a nurse or a therapist in another field (such as occupational therapy).

If you’re interested in working in children’s mental health services, play therapy could be the right pathway for you! At the University of Bolton, we put students, and their needs first. Not only are we one of the best universities for early childhood education in the UK, but we’re proud to deliver #UniAsItShouldBe!

This means we have a student-centric approach and are completely committed to ensuring a friendly and supportive learning environment where you can enjoy personal and professional development. 

To find out more about applying in 2022/23, see our early childhood courses.

*Complete University Guide 2022 – North West Region