Play Therapy Certificate Programs Compared

Online play therapy certificates fall into two pathways. University graduate certificates, such as those at Loma Linda University, the University of Wyoming, UNC Charlotte, and Capella University, are academic programs that award graduate credit and generally require you to already hold, or be actively pursuing, a licensable mental-health graduate degree. Institute certificates, like the Play Strong Institute's Certificate in Child-Centered Play Therapy, are professional training programs open to any professional who works with children, with no degree prerequisite. Yet an institute certificate can prepare professionals for credentialing in mental health areas such as play therapy. Compare them on four things: cost, prerequisites, CE approvals, and who actually teaches the material.

Both pathways are legitimate, and the right answer genuinely depends on what you need. If you want play therapy coursework recorded as graduate credit on a university transcript, a university certificate is the better instrument, and the four universities below run excellent programs. Their published and estimated totals run from roughly $2,800 to over $8,600 depending on the school and on whether you pay in-state or out-of-state rates. If what you want is the training itself (the theory, the clinical skills, the hours of real sessions) along with continuing education credit you can apply toward the RPT credential and license renewal, an institute certificate will get you there faster and for far less.

Comparison Table

Figures below are drawn from each program's published information. Estimated prices are computed from each school's published per-credit tuition and are marked as estimates. Please confirm with the school before making any decision.

One category is deliberately left out of the table: the broad field of low-cost online certification sites, which typically charge a small one-off fee, set no prerequisites, and vary widely in hours and access. They are worth a section of their own, below.

Who Designed Your Training

When you are comparing certificate programs, the most useful question is often not what the certificate is called but who built the curriculum behind it. Dr. Georgie Wisen-Vincent, PhD, LMFT, RPT-S, is the Co-Founder and Director of the Play Strong Institute. She designed the curriculum for the Play Therapy Certificate Program at Loma Linda University, and she currently teaches play therapy at the graduate level at Santa Clara University.

She is also the co-author, with Dr. Tina Payne Bryson, of The Way of Play (Penguin Random House, 2025), and she designed the Play Strong Institute's Certificate in Child-Centered Play Therapy with a Neurorelational Emphasis in collaboration with Dr. Bryson.

That history is the point of this page. Graduate programs do outstanding work, and they are the right home for coursework that has to count academically. But by design they serve students who hold a licensable graduate degree and are pursuing graduate credit. Dr. Wisen-Vincent built the Play Strong Institute's certificate to bring her approach to play therapy training to the professionals a university program cannot reach — no degree prerequisite, no admissions cycle, no academic calendar, and a fraction of graduate tuition. The curriculum was originally delivered as a year-long, in-person training whose participants paid $3,750; Play Strong recorded those sessions in full and now offers the complete program on demand for $499.

The certificate is taught alongside our wider faculty, including experts in neurobiology, child development, and interdisciplinary practice, and more than 2,000 students have now taken it. You can read the full faculty list and the workshop-by-workshop curriculum on the Play Therapy Certificate page.

Which Program Is Right for You?

A word about the low-cost certification sites

There is a third option people run into constantly: inexpensive online certification sites that will sell you a play therapy certificate for a very small fee. We are not going to name or criticize them, and for someone exploring the field out of general interest they can be a sensible first step. But if you intend the hours to count for anything — license renewal, an RPT application, a credential in your own country — check who accredits the CE hours before you pay. Look for an explicit approval number from a recognized body such as the Association for Play Therapy or the American Psychological Association, and check that the approval covers the specific hours you plan to claim.

Still deciding?

These are not mutually exclusive. A number of our students hold a university play therapy certificate and take the Play Strong Institute program afterward for the clinical depth, the recorded real sessions, and the non-contact CE hours that can be applied at any phase of the RPT credentialing application — or take ours first and go on to graduate study later. If you want to see exactly what is inside our program before deciding, the full curriculum, faculty bios, and workshop descriptions are all published openly.

Frequently Asked Questions

Click any question below to expand its answer.

• Do I need a master's degree to earn a play therapy certificate?

  It depends entirely on which kind of program you choose. University graduate certificates in play therapy, such as those offered by Loma Linda University, the University of Wyoming, UNC Charlotte, and Capella University, are graduate-level academic programs, and they generally require that you already hold, or be actively pursuing, a licensable mental-health graduate degree from a regionally accredited institution. Some also admit students who are currently enrolled in that university's own graduate program. Institute certificates work differently. The Play Strong Institute's Certificate in Child-Centered Play Therapy has no degree prerequisite and no admissions cycle: it is open to therapists, counselors, school counselors, occupational therapists, speech and language pathologists, social workers, child life specialists, educators, and caregivers anywhere in the world.

• What does a play therapy certificate cost?

  There are two very different price structures. University graduate certificates are billed at graduate tuition rates, and published or estimated totals for the programs on this page run from roughly $2,800 to over $8,600 depending on the school and on your residency; several of those totals are our own estimates, computed from each school's published per-credit tuition, so confirm current tuition, per-unit costs, and fees with the school itself. The Play Strong Institute's Certificate in Child-Centered Play Therapy with a Neurorelational Emphasis is a flat $499 for 150 hours of on-demand instruction and up to 150 non-contact CE credits — about $3.33 per non-contact CE hour. There is also a wide field of low-cost certification websites offering play therapy certificates for very small fees; those can be a reasonable fit for general interest, but you should check who accredits their CE hours before assuming the hours will be recognized by a licensing board or a play therapy association.

• What is the difference between a university play therapy certificate and an institute certificate?

  A university graduate certificate is an academic credential: you apply through the university's admissions process, you complete graduate coursework for academic credit, and the units appear on a university transcript. That academic credit is genuinely valuable if you are working toward licensure, planning further graduate study, or you want play therapy coursework recorded on a transcript. An institute certificate is a professional training credential: you enroll directly, you complete the training itself, and you receive continuing education credit and a certificate of completion from the training organization rather than academic units. Both are legitimate; they answer different needs.

• Do these non-contact CE hours count toward the Registered Play Therapist (RPT) credential?

  The Play Strong Institute is an Association for Play Therapy (APT) Approved Provider (#16-456), so the play therapy specific continuing education credits we award can be used to satisfy partial educational requirements toward the Registered Play Therapist (RPT) application process for eligible mental health professionals in the United States. Because our certificate is delivered entirely as pre-recorded video, these hours may count as APT approved non-contact hours of play therapy education. Non-contact hours cannot make up the whole of the RPT instruction requirement: completing our 150 hours does not by itself satisfy the 150 instruction hours APT asks for, and you will need contact (in-person) training alongside them. APT sets the limits, so check the current guidelines at www.a4pt.org or contact APT directly at (559) 298-3400 before you plan your hours.

• How many of my online play therapy hours can count toward the RPT instruction requirement?

  Under the APT credentialing standards effective April 1, 2025, at least 75 of the 150 play therapy instruction hours required for the Registered Play Therapist credential must be contact (in-person) training. All webinars count as non-contact, including live ones. In practice that means hours earned through any fully online program, ours included, can supply at most 75 of those 150 hours, and the remaining 75 must come from in-person training. This is a good thing to plan around early rather than discover late. The current standards and any updates are published at www.a4pt.org, or you can call APT at (559) 298-3400.

• Is the Play Strong Institute certificate accredited?

  Continuing education for the Play Strong Institute's certificate is provided under our CE Program Administrator: Georgeanne Wisen, LMFT RPT-S, is approved by the Association for Play Therapy to offer continuing education specific to play therapy (APT Approved Provider #16-456) and by the American Psychological Association (APA) to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. Those are continuing education approvals rather than institutional accreditation: we are not a university and we do not award academic credit. Within that approval, the play therapy specific non-contact CE credits we issue can be used to satisfy partial educational requirements toward the Registered Play Therapist (RPT) application process for eligible mental health professionals in the United States. It is worth noting that no training organization — ours included — can confer the title of "play therapist"; in the United States that title is governed by APT, and other countries have their own national associations and pathways.

• Can international students enroll in a play therapy certificate?

  Yes. The Play Strong Institute's certificate is fully online, self-paced, and open internationally with no prerequisites — professionals from countries across the world have completed it. University graduate certificates are also frequently offered online, but international applicants must still satisfy the program's admissions requirements, including a licensable mental-health graduate degree from a regionally accredited institution, letters of recommendation, and transcripts. If you intend to use your hours toward a credential outside the United States, contact your country's national play therapy association first to confirm whether the hours are transferable.

• How long does an online play therapy certificate take to complete?

  University graduate certificates are measured in academic units and run on academic terms. Loma Linda University's online Play Therapy Certificate, for example, is 13 quarter units across five courses delivered over four quarters, and the University of Wyoming's certificate runs as a one-year cohort starting each fall, so in both cases the pace is set by the course calendar. The Play Strong Institute's certificate is 150 hours of on-demand video with lifetime access, so you set the pace yourself. Some students complete it over a few intensive months; many work through it alongside a full caseload over a year or more, returning to individual workshops as reference material long after finishing.

• Who teaches the Play Strong Institute certificate?

  The program was designed by Dr. Georgie Wisen-Vincent, PhD, LMFT, RPT-S, Co-Founder and Director of the Play Strong Institute, in collaboration with Dr. Tina Payne Bryson, founder of The Center for Connection. Dr. Wisen-Vincent designed the curriculum for the Play Therapy Certificate Program at Loma Linda University and currently teaches play therapy at the graduate level at Santa Clara University. She is the co-author, with Dr. Bryson, of The Way of Play (Penguin Random House, 2025). The certificate is taught by multiple faculty members alongside her, including experts in neurobiology, child development, and interdisciplinary practice.

Read the full details of the Play Strong certificate →