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July 10-11, 2026 | Springfield, VA
The Hidden Architecture of Harm: Mapping Cognitive Biases in the School-to-Prison Pipeline
The school-to-prison pipeline operates through a ‘hidden architecture,’ an interconnected system of cognitive biases that construct invisible pathways from classroom to courtroom for Black children. This pipeline represents a critical context for play therapy practice, as mental health professionals encounter children impacted by these biases across clinical settings. This keynote examines how cognitive biases function not in isolation, but as structural components that compound across systems, and how play therapy practitioners can recognize and interrupt this architecture through clinical practice
Drawing from seminal research on cognitive bias, this session provides play therapy practitioners with a framework for distinguishing how these biases infiltrate play therapy referrals, intake assessments, and clinical decision-making. Play therapy practitioners encounter Black children at every point along this continuum, receiving biased referral questions, conducting assessments that challenge deficit narratives, providing therapeutic interventions that address systemic trauma, and collaborating with multidisciplinary teams where bias shapes recommendations.
This keynote grounds participants in play therapy theory as a framework for bias interruption. Through the therapeutic power of play, we model what culturally responsive clinical practice requires: unconditional positive regard, developmental understanding, and trauma-informed conceptualization. Play therapy practitioners uniquely position themselves to create healing spaces where Black children’s developmental expression is welcomed rather than pathologized, where play-based assessment reveals capacities overlooked in deficit-focused evaluations, and where therapeutic relationships provide corrective experiences to systemic harm.
Participants will explore how play therapy theoretical frameworks and attachment-based approaches provide clinical tools for recognizing bias in referrals, reframing presenting problems through developmental and trauma lenses, selecting interventions that honor Black children’s right to play and heal, and documenting clinical work using strength-based language that protects children from punitive responses.
This keynote establishes the foundational framework for the symposium’s deeper exploration of play therapy assessment techniques, intervention strategies, and clinical applications across the two-day training.
Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this presentation, participants will be able to:
Breaking Free from Bias: Perspectives from the Field
Audrice Johnson, LPC | Quinn Flowers, LICSW | Sean Myers, LPC, CSC | Althea T. Simpson, LCSW-C, RPT-S, PhD
Mental health professionals working with Black children across the school-to-prison pipeline must develop specialized skills for breaking free from bias in clinical decision-making. This panel examines play therapy clinical practice across school-based, community mental health, and correctional settings, exploring how play therapy theory and methods provide frameworks for recognizing and challenging the cognitive biases that construct pathways from classroom to courtroom through infiltration of referrals, assessments, treatment planning, and interventions.
Four licensed play therapy practitioners representing different points along the school-to-prison continuum will demonstrate bias-interruption strategies through case presentations, guided discussion, and an experiential activity. Each panelist will present clinical case material demonstrating specialized applications: a certified school counselor working with a student referred for emotional and behavioral concerns; a school social worker using modified play therapy approaches with adolescents, revealing how assessment can uncover trauma responses misidentified as conduct problems; a corrections-based professional counselor adapting directive play therapy techniques in restricted environments; and a community mental health social worker illustrating trauma-focused play therapy interventions for children in foster care.
Participants will develop clinical skills to apply theoretical constructs to case conceptualization, select play therapy interventions matched to presenting concerns, adapt techniques across diverse clinical environments, document sessions using strength-based language, and advocate for therapeutic responses instead of deficit-based responses in multidisciplinary settings. The session includes case presentations, live demonstrations on how to reframe bias-laden language using a play therapy lens, and Q&A.
Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this presentation, participants will be able to:
Reclaiming Girlhood: Play Therapy Interventions Addressing the Criminalization, Adultification, and Sexualization of Black Girls
Mental health professionals working with Black girls encounter unique clinical challenges rooted in adultification bias, the systematic perception of Black girls as older, less innocent, and more responsible than their developmental stage warrants. This specialized play therapy training examines how adultification bias, hypersexualization, and criminalization create complex trauma presentations in Black girls and provides evidence-based Adlerian play therapy interventions to address this systemic harm.
Grounded in Georgetown Law Center research and Adlerian play therapy theory, this experiential workshop develops clinical skills for recognizing how these biases impact Black girls’ development, relationships, and sense of self, and for applying play therapy as a tool to disrupt harmful narratives and restore healing. Participants will learn the four phases of Adlerian play therapy specifically adapted for complex trauma, practice play therapy techniques that restore safety and reclaim identity, and explore play-based interventions that honor cultural identity while supporting empowerment.
This extensive hands-on session emphasizes clinical application through experiential activities, case consultation, and clinical skills practice. Participants will engage directly in play therapy techniques including expressive arts and play-based identity work. The session explores how to recognize trauma responses that are frequently misidentified as conduct problems, apply Adlerian concepts of belonging, courage, and social interest within culturally responsive play therapy practice, and use strength-based clinical language that protects Black girls from further harm while promoting healing.
This session provides play therapy practitioners with specialized clinical tools grounded in Adlerian play therapy theory and culturally affirming expressive approaches to support Black girls’ healing while addressing the unique intersection of developmental trauma and systemic oppression.
Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this presentation, participants will be able to:
Stolen Childhoods: How Cognitive Biases Build the School-to-Prison Pipeline
Childhood is a human right. For Black children in America, it is systematically stolen. The school-to-prison pipeline operates as invisible architecture that transforms developmental behavior into evidence, emotional expression into disorder, and play into defiance. This theft of childhood occurs across a continuum, from school discipline to mental health referrals to juvenile detention, where mental health professionals provide clinical services at every intervention point.
Research documents this continuum: principals’ biases drive exclusionary discipline, disparate practices eliminate learning opportunities, teacher referrals initiate pipeline entry, and justice system involvement produces lasting developmental and behavioral consequences. Play therapy practitioners encounter children across this entire pipeline, in schools treating emotional dysregulation before it becomes disciplinary action, in community mental health addressing trauma misidentified as conduct disorder, and in juvenile justice settings providing therapeutic interventions for youth whose childhoods were stolen long before detention and for many, incarceration.
This full day session, grounded in culturally attuned play therapy, equips practitioners across all settings with skills to recognize bias-driven referrals, treat behavioral issues rooted in systemic trauma, and provide interventions that reclaim childhood. Participants develop cultural humility, advocacy capacity, and trauma-responsive play therapy approaches for youth and families impacted by the school-to-prison pipeline.
Using PlayMobil Pro Pro.Play® method and arts-based interventions in the morning, and LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® methodology in the afternoon, participants practice culturally responsive assessment across settings, play therapy interventions including integrating DBT for behavioral issues, adapt techniques for restrictive environments, create protective documentation, and understand their roles whether integrating play therapy in schools, community mental health, private psychotherapy practice or juvenile justice facilities.
Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this workshop, participants will be able to:
Register now to secure your spot at this experiential learning experience.