Graduate Student Awarded Child-Centered Play Therapy Scholarship
Coco Wing Yun Wong G’27, a clinical mental health counseling master’s degree student in the School of Education and former graduate student employee in Health Promotion at the Barnes Center at the Arch, has been named the 2026 recipient of the Charles Schaefer Play Therapy Scholarship.
The award is given to just one student nationally each year by the Foundation for Play Therapy. Named in memory of Dr. Charles Schaefer, a co-founder of the Association for Play Therapy, the scholarship provides $5,000 toward training and supervision as Wong works toward a registered play therapist credential.
Wong’s path to the field began in high school in Macau, China, where a single picture—of a colorful room full of toys, a child and a play therapist—stuck with her long before she had any formal training.
That interest carried her through an undergraduate degree in psychology at Peking University, a gap year that included two months as a full-time volunteer supporting children and adolescents with developmental disabilities in Yunnan, China; two full-time jobs in Macau (one in a residential setting for adults with substance use disorders; one as a pre-school counselor); and, eventually, a weekly ferry commute from Macau to Hong Kong, the closest place she could find training in Child-Centered Play Therapy (CCPT).
In this interview, Wong talks about the scholarship’s importance, what play therapy is (and is not), her experience studying with the School of Education and her future goals.
Play therapy is one of my biggest passions, so this means a lot. Pursuing a career in play therapy has not been easy, and the term was not widely understood in Macau.
When I needed to complete my practicum there, I had to fight against all odds to coordinate with the agencies to secure a space for play therapy, find my own clients and handle everything myself.
There were a lot of challenges, so this scholarship is validating. The acknowledgment of all that effort and sacrifice means the most to me.
When most people picture counseling, they imagine two people sitting in chairs, talking. Talk therapy works well between adults, because adults can use words, which are abstract symbols, to express feelings.
But young children, typically between the ages of 3 and 12, are not developmentally ready for that. You cannot expect a young child to sit in a chair and use words to talk through all their stresses and concerns. CCPT is a counseling approach where the therapist provides developmentally appropriate materials that let the child freely express themselves and direct their own play.
As Garry Landreth—one of the most important figures in the field of Child-Centered Play Therapy—put it: toys are children’s words, and play is their language. It is the most natural medium of communication for them. Children directly “play out” their experiences and feelings that cannot be expressed at a verbal level. Within that safe relationship, children move toward more self-enhancing ways of being.
The room is full of different, developmentally appropriate toys, and every toy is chosen with a purpose. We ask, “Would this toy help a child express themselves?” We do not just fill the room with everything.
There are really three main categories. First, there are real-life and nurturing toys, such as animal families, baby dolls, furniture, play kitchens and pretend play materials like medical kits and blocks. These allow children to act out different roles within family contexts and meet nurturing-related needs.
Second, there are aggressive and scary toys. Aggressive toys—such as toy guns, knives, handcuffs or army figures—help children fully express anger and other difficult, intense feelings. Scary toys, such as sharks and snakes, help them express and process fears and anxiety. We also have a stand-up punching or bop bag, which we sometimes call a “Bobo.” Children will play with it in many ways, not necessarily just aggressively.
Parents sometimes worry these toys might make children more aggressive. However, when children are provided a safe space to freely release and process these intense feelings in the playroom, they often have less need to act them out in their daily lives because their needs are met during the play therapy session.
Third, there are creative and expressive toys, which include various art materials. These are used to express both positive and negative emotions. Children are often very creative and will use any of these toys to express feelings in ways you cannot always predict.
In a first session, we introduce the child to the room as a place where they can play with the toys in lots of ways. Some children are hesitant or nervous; others are comfortable right away.
As the therapist, I take a non-directive, empathetic and reflective stance rather than directing the play, although I will join in if the child invites me to. It is less about passively following the child and more about “being with” them, genuinely feeling and understanding what they are expressing, matching their affect, staying attuned to their nonverbal cues and letting my presence communicate that I am fully here with them.
