I am very excited to be writing my first column as the new President of TAPT. My first order of business is to thank Barbara Ann Hall for her years of dedicated and selfless service to our association. The positive changes that have occurred within TAPT over the past five years have been wonderful to experience. We have seen our newsletter go from paper to email and our brochure from snail mail to online. Members of TAPT can now register on our website for our annual conference and pay with a credit card. Our website provides membership an immediate avenue to the Board through message forums. We continue to move forward towards becoming a fully functional and vibrant virtual community.
Our new year began August 1st. We will be welcoming eight new members to our fifteen member board, creating a new era in leadership. We will be exploring the creation of new leadership practices to synergize the rich history of TAPT with the present challenges we face as an organization.
TAPT provides many opportunities to play therapists to learn and grow professionally. It also provides each of us the ability to cultivate relationships with other therapists that are not only beneficial professionally, but enhance our personal lives as well. As you are called on by board members to help with the essential work of TAPT, remember our history was built on relationships and our future as an association depends upon continuing to strengthen them. So please, volunteer when you can.
In closing, I want to leave you with a story. I was in the playroom with a six year old boy not so long ago who stopped his play, appeared to be in deep thought, looked me straight in the eye and asked, “Who was your play therapist when you were my age?” My mind started racing as it does when I am amazed by a comment in the playroom. Before responding with a classic play therapy comment, I reached an internal understanding. At that moment, it came to me clearly how much I really love my job. Hopefully some of our clients will become play therapists themselves, and when they do, they will have an answer to that question.
Yours in service to TAPT,
Leah Miller, MA, LPC-S, LMFT, RPT-S
TAPT President
300 Thunderbird - Suite 12
El Paso, Txas 79912
(915) 845-3122 ext. 12
