RPT Group Supervision in Colorado
Click Here to Register for RPT Group Supervision
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Click Here to Register for RPT Group Supervision *
Children are people.
People are complicated.
Your supervision should prepare you for that.
October 12th, 2026 - January 4th, 2027
* secondary start date of November 2nd to ensure adequate enrollment
12:00 pm- 1:15 pm
Virtual
10 clinicians maximum
12 sessions | 75 minutes
15 APT-eligible group supervision hours
$1,020
Early registrants receive 1 individual supervision session included at no extra cost
You want to do the hard work.
You want to make a difference for the kids who need it the most.
You want the clinical judgment to work with children and families when there isn't an easy answer.
We want to help you get there.
There’s therapy
and then there’s THERAPY.
The work with kids and families that feels messy, complex, uncertain, and sometimes completely out of your depth.
You got into this work because you believe in it. You want to make a difference. You want to spend your time helping children and families find a path forward when things feel difficult, overwhelming, or stuck.
And then you discover the barriers:
Limited resources.
Gaps in knowledge and experience.
Difficulty building relationships with caregivers.
Kids who “just don’t care”.
Risks that feel insurmountable.
Fear of getting it wrong
or wondering whether you have what it takes.
Systems that move slowly, don't work the way they should, or sometimes seem to work against the very people you're trying to help.
You already have the heart, desire, and passion for this work. Let us help you build the skills and clinical judgment to carry it forward.
At Tall Pines Therapy, we bring nearly 20 years of experience working with children and families, including some of the most challenging parts of play and family therapy: crisis and de-escalation, safety planning, harm reduction, family upheaval and separation, complex trauma, disability, and difficult conversations about abuse and neglect. We know what it means to sit with uncertainty, navigate competing needs, speak hard truths aloud, and keep showing up when there isn't an easy answer.
We bring applied experience, strong theoretical foundations, and ethical courage to supervision. Our goal is to help play therapists become stronger clinicians: more confident, flexible, creative, reflective, and prepared to do difficult work well.
You want to become your best clinician. We want to help light the way.
Join us to learn the hard stuff, wrestle with complexity, challenge your assumptions, and get back to the belief that play therapy can be joyful, creative, and deeply rewarding.
The Curriculum
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Week 1: Entering Supervision
Who are we? How did we get here? Where are we going?
Professional identity
Clinical interests
Supervision expectations
Feedback
Confidentiality
Video review
Establishing the supervisory relationship
Supervisor demonstration video
Creating shared expectations for giving and receiving feedback
Week 2: Creating the Container
Building a case formulation
Developmental formulation
Child-directed and adult-directed approaches
Theory integration
Treatment planning
Service gaps
Environment and safety
Developmentally appropriate practice
Limits and boundaries
Week 3: Holding the Container
When the plan isn't working
Complex formulation
Strengths-based practice
Bias
Self-determination
Failed interventions
Therapist limitations
Care coordination
Referral
Positive behavioral supports
Regulation
Limits and rules
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Week 4: Entering the Child's World
Child-led practice
Relationship and attunement
Pacing
Boundaries
Family rapport
Caregiver engagement
History gathering
Authenticity
Week 5: Making Meaning of the Work
Play themes
Conceptualization
Translating formulation into intervention
Creativity within theoretical orientation
Intervention selection and adaptation
Treatment planning
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Week 6: Professional identity
Personal style
Therapist authenticity
Countertransference
Courage
Humility
Clinical limits
Confidence versus certainty
Developing your own clinical voice
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These sessions move from teaching into increasingly sophisticated case consultation and video review.
Potential areas include:
Sexual abuse & problematic sexual behaviors
Suicidality & self-harm
Eating disorders
Harm reduction
Substance use
Foster care & out-of-home placement
Intellectual/developmental disabilities
Poverty & resource scarcity
Family estrangement
High-conflict separation
Court involvement
Power & coercion
Reunification work
Mandated reporting
Systems-level harm
Therapist countertransference
When the therapist becomes part of the problem
Knowing when you're out of your depthThe exact cases and discussions will be responsive to the needs of the cohort.
Click Here to Register for RPT Group Supervision
*
Click Here to Register for RPT Group Supervision *
Competence isn't always about certainty.
It is the ability to remain thoughtful, compassionate, flexible, and ethically accountable when you don't know.
You will develop the theoretical knowledge and practical skills to act with intention, the creativity to adapt when an approach isn't working, and the humility to recognize when you need another perspective, additional support, or a different plan.
The goal isn't to become the therapist who always knows what to do.
The goal is to become the therapist who knows how to keep thinking when the answer isn't clear.
RPT Supervision
with Tall Pines Therapy
What will you actually learn to do differently?
Clinical judgment is more than knowing which intervention to use.
It is the ability to make thoughtful, defensible decisions when there isn't one right answer.
In play and family therapy, a child's presenting concern rarely tells the whole story. Development, trauma, relationships, culture, disability, poverty, school, community, and larger systems can all shape what a child is communicating and what treatment can realistically accomplish.
Complex cases require us to recognize that every clinical decision has context and consequences.
A caregiver's request may conflict with a child's needs.
An intervention that supports autonomy in one situation may create risk in another.
A safety intervention may also create disruption, stigma, or loss of control.
Systems intended to help children- including schools, healthcare, child welfare, and legal systems- can sometimes contribute to distress or trauma themselves.
Clinical judgment means learning to consider these competing realities without reducing a child or family to a diagnosis, behavior, or treatment model.
In supervision, your formulation is a hypothesis, not a verdict.
We will examine what you may be missing, whose perspective has been overlooked, what assumptions are shaping your thinking, and what strengths or adaptive purposes may exist within behaviors we’ve been taught to label as “maladaptive.”
You will be encouraged to defend your clinical reasoning and expected to change your mind when new information, better reasoning, or the child's needs require you to.
15 hours
APT-eligible
12 sessions
75 minutes
10 Maximum
Small cohort
Click Here to Register for RPT Group Supervision
*
Click Here to Register for RPT Group Supervision *
Change your mind about your practice.
Change your mind about supervision.
Not because you don't know what you're doing.
Because clinical knowledge is provisional.
Because children reveal things gradually.
Because caregivers have perspectives you haven't heard yet.
Because systems alter the clinical picture.
Because your first formulation may be wrong.
Because an intervention can work for one child and fail spectacularly with another.
Because sometimes “challenging behavior” is also a child's attempt to survive, communicate, connect, protect themselves, or maintain control.
And because good therapists aren't committed to being right. They're committed to getting closer to what's actually happening.
In this supervision group, you will learn to ask:
What am I missing?
Whose perspective isn't represented?
What assumptions am I making?
What am I taking for granted because it feels familiar or clinically comfortable?
What else could this behavior mean?
What strengths, adaptations, needs, relationships, or survival strategies might exist within a pattern we've called “maladaptive”?
Who has power here?
How are family relationships, culture, poverty, disability, institutions, or legal and child welfare systems shaping the options available to this child?
What happens if I'm wrong?
What are the potential consequences of the intervention I'm considering—and who carries the greatest risk?
What would change my mind?
What information, observation, relationship, or clinical outcome would tell me that I need to reconsider?
Working with kids doesn’t reduce the chances of complexity.
In fact, complexity is guaranteed.
Every child is different.
Every family is different.
Every therapeutic relationship is different.
And the clinical picture can (and should) change.
You will learn frameworks, theories, interventions, and practical strategies.
You will also learn when to adapt them, when to question them, and when to put them down altogether.
The goal isn't to prove you're right,
the goal is to get closer to what this child and family actually want and need.
Six Foundations of Supervision
How we approach the work matters as much as what we teach.
01 SAFETY
Safety means more than preventing crisis. We create space for courageous clinical work while keeping dignity, development, confidentiality, and real-world risk in view.
02 GROUNDED CREATIVITY
Clinical grounding makes flexibility possible. Build strong foundations so you can adapt interventions thoughtfully rather than rigidly applying one model to every child or family.
03 RELATIONSHIP
The supervisory relationship matters. You can disagree, bring uncertainty, and say “I don't know what to do.” Supervision should be honest, collaborative, boundaried, and responsive.
04 CURIOSITY
Your formulation is a hypothesis, not a fact. We ask what you're missing, whose perspective has been overlooked, and what new information might change your mind.
Nuance is difficult to hold and this is where you’ll learn to do just that.
05 SYSTEMS THINKING
Children do not develop in isolation. We examine families, culture, poverty, disability, schools, healthcare, child welfare, legal systems, and the ways systems themselves can contribute to harm.
06 ETHICAL COURAGE
Complexity rarely offers a perfect solution. We practice making defensible decisions, naming power, tolerating uncertainty, asking for help, and choosing the path that causes the least harm.
What Supervision Actually Looks Like
● Difficult cases
● Video review
● Case formulation
● Direct feedback
●The role of countertransference
● Systems thinking
● Ethical dilemmas
● Caregiver work
Compassion & challenge belong together
empathy + humility + accountability
Supervision should be supportive enough for you to take risks and challenging enough to help you grow. You can expect empathy, direct feedback, thoughtful disagreement, and honest conversations about the limits of your clinical knowledge.
You won't be expected to have the right answer every time. You will be expected to think carefully about why you chose the answer you did and to reconsider it when the clinical picture changes.
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This group is for clinicians who:
want their supervision to be intellectually engaging
want direct feedback rather than reassurance alone
are willing to examine their own assumptions
want to work with children and the adults/systems surrounding them
understand that play therapy requires developmental, relational, theoretical, and systemic thinking
can tolerate ambiguity
are willing to change their minds
want to develop a flexible clinical toolbox rather than rely on one intervention model
are open to creativity, vulnerability, and learning new ways to play!
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This group may not be a good fit if you:
primarily want to accumulate hours with minimal participation
want the supervisor to tell you exactly what intervention to use
believe children are “easier” than adults
don't want to work with caregivers
want a single theoretical model applied consistently
are uncomfortable discussing power, culture, privilege, oppression, or systemic forces
aren't willing to receive or give thoughtful feedback
expect confidence to mean certainty
are looking for a replacement for individual supervision
click here for more information on individual supervision requirements for RPTs
WHAT YOU RECEIVE
15 group hours (total requirement through APT)
12 sessions
Video review
Case consultation
RPT guidance
YOUR INVESTMENT
+ $1,020
Early registrants will receive: 1 individual supervision session included at no additional cost
About your Supervisor
Erin Johnson
LCSW, RPT-S, ACS
I've spent almost 20 years working with children and families
and 10 years providing supervision in a wide array of settings.
My professional experience has included early intervention, preschool education, infant and child development, transitional housing, disability support, complex & developmental trauma, medical trauma and medical fragility, sexual trauma, foster care, residential treatment, high-conflict family systems, legal-system involvement, crisis work with children and adults, in-home support, LGBTQIA+ clients and families, parents anticipating and grieving the loss of their child, community mental health, and private practice.
I've worked alongside caregivers, educators, attorneys, child and family investigators, CASAs, children’s legal representatives, residential providers, medical professionals, early-intervention teams, public and private schools, and other systems that impact families’ lives.
My supervision style draws from child-centered play therapy, psychodynamic and family approaches, directive play therapy strategies grounded in attunement, narrative therapy, expressive therapies, developmental theory, behavioral supports, and neurodiversity-informed practice. My theoretical orientation is firmly rooted in queer & feminist theory, critical analysis of mainstream therapy and wellness practices, impacts of racial and systemic oppression, and dismantling of supremacist ideologies that are relevant to each client— and to children in particular.
I bring experience, specialization, and passionate investment to supervision.
I am humbled to be part of the journey toward healing, learning, and growing for both my clients and my supervisees.
It is an integral tenet of my practice to reject the idea of holding expertise over another person’s life. Expertise means we know it all… but humility means we’re invested in the long-term process of learning and questioning hierarchies that disempower our clients.
I believe in voracious learning, critical thinking, ambitious application, and deep commitment to therapy work. I do not believe that our growth or curiosity should have a finish line.
We are incredibly lucky to hold the trust of our clients and because of that, our accountability matters.
Our clients remain the experts on their own lives.
The right to self-determination is the right to dignity.
Our job as therapists is to build enough knowledge, flexibility, humility, and clinical courage to see our clients as clearly as possible. And my job as a supervisor is to support you every step of the way.
Click Here to Register for RPT Group Supervision
*
Click Here to Register for RPT Group Supervision *
Frequently Asked Questions
Does this fulfill all of my RPT supervision requirements?
No. This cohort provides 15 group hours, which is the maximum number of group hours currently accepted by APT toward the 35-hour RPT supervision requirement. The remaining hours must be completed individually. Click here for more information on individual supervision hours with Erin.
Is this individual supervision?
No. This is a structured group supervision cohort. Individual supervision is available separately.
How large is the group?
10 clinicians maximum.
Is attendance required?
Yes. Full participation is expected because the quality of the group depends on consistent participation.
Can I bring difficult or high-risk cases?
Yes, with important limitations. Some cases may be too high-risk or legally sensitive to address adequately in group supervision. In those circumstances, you will be encouraged to consult with your individual supervisor promptly. Individual consultation with Erin may also be available depending on the circumstances.
Can I discuss a court-ordered reunification case?
Cases involving active legal proceedings require special consideration. The group will use de-identified hypotheticals and supervisor-developed case examples to explore reunification, custody, coercion, and related ethical issues. Active court-involved cases will not be presented for group consultation without appropriate legal and ethical review.
Do I need to be licensed?
You must meet APT's eligibility requirements for RPT supervision. This cohort is designed primarily for pre-licensed and associate-level clinicians, as well as early-career clinicians already practicing play therapy.
Is this available outside Colorado?
The initial cohort is designed for clinicians practicing in Colorado. Distance supervision is subject to applicable licensing requirements. APT specifically notes that distance supervision is acceptable only when permitted by the relevant licensing boards.
