Didactic
Facilitation
Supervision
Peer Poetry Therapy Experience
Institutional Experience (PTR only)
Other Meritorious Learning (PTR only)

The Credentials Committee of the NFBPT is the final authority for whether or not a trainee meets all training requirements. Graduation from a university program or private training institute does not guarantee successful completion of all areas of poetry therapy training. Your mentor/supervisor will guide you in the facilitation, peer group, supervision, and didactic requirements that comprise your training program.

Didactic [200 hours required for CAPF/CPT, 250 for PTR]

Didactic work is the educational or academic part of the training. With guidance from a mentor/supervisor, you will develop a plan for the reading of required and optional texts and articles, completion of assigned exercises and activities, and attendance at relevant conferences, lectures, classes, and intensive seminars available throughout the United States and abroad. A list of various educational opportunities and updates is available here. Reading poetry and attending poetry presentations do not qualify as didactic study unless a written report clearly ties them into application for poetry therapy. With mentor/supervisor approval you may earn didactic credit for providing presentations that inform the public about poetry therapy.

You are responsible for documenting your learning with annotations of assigned and self-directed readings, reports of educational activities, and contemporaneous records of your time investment. These documents must be submitted to your mentor/supervisor for feedback and discussion.

As of April 2005, the following readings documented by your annotations are required of all CAPFs, CPTs and PTRs. Standardized maximum hours of didactic training credit are listed.

Biblio/Poetry Therapy: The Interactive Process: A Handbook, Arleen Hynes & Mary Hynes-Berry, North Star Press. Annotated by chapter. 12 hours
Finding What You Didn't Lose, John Fox, J. P. Tarcher. 10 hours
The Healing Fountain, Geri Chavis and Lila Weisberger, eds., NorthStar Press. Annotated by chapter. 10 hours
Journal of Poetry Therapy, Nicholas J. Mazza, ed., Taylor & Francis. Available through membership in NAPT or by individual subscription. 4 issues/year. 1 hr/issue.
Journal to the Self, Kathleen Adams, Warner Books. 8 hours
Poetry as Healer: Mending the Troubled Mind, Jack Leedy, ed. Out of print; available through Federation. 10 hours
Poetry as Therapy, Nicholas J. Mazza, Brunner-Routledge. 6 hours
Poetry in the Therapeutic Experience, Art Lerner, ed., MMB Music. 8 hours

Learning from on-line or teleconference classes, or any combination thereof, will be accepted for credit, with the pre-approval of your mentor/supervisor.

Facilitation [120 hours required for CAPF/CPT, 300 for PTR]

Facilitation of poetry therapy in your community or professional setting is your practicum experience. With respect for your background, previous experience, and interests, you and your mentor/supervisor will determine appropriate sites and make arrangements for your facilitation work. Examples of sites include rehabilitation centers, schools, senior centers, libraries, churches, prisons, hospitals, and other clinical settings for psychiatric populations.

As a CAPF or CPT candidate, you must work with at least two different populations. You are required to provide a minimum of 30 hours at one training site or with one population. With limited exceptions, for facilitation credit, you must provide at least three sessions with a particular population. If you are a CPT candidate, you must conduct a portion of your facilitation in a clinical setting. As a PTR candidate, you must work with at least three different populations in clinical settings, and at least one non-clinical population. One or more longer-term experiences are encouraged. Your mentor/supervisor will provide guidance in proposing, planning, facilitating, and documenting your work. Up to 12 hours of stand-alone groups or workshops may be counted towards facilitation as long as documentation is provided demonstrating how each session was a facilitated experience rather than a didactic presentation. The minimum number of facilitations to complete the 120 hour requirement (CAPF, CPT) is 90 sessions. For the 300 hour requirement (PTR), the minimum number of facilitations is 200.

Your process report and your plan for the next session must be submitted to your M/S after your session if your work is to qualify as supervised and therefore count toward facilitation hours. Process recordings must address type and number of clients present (with identities protected), site of the experience, number of session in a sequence, length of the session, goal(s) for the session, choice of literature and plan for writing and/or other activities. The body of the recording must include a narrative of participants' responses and interactions, your interventions, an assessment of how the literature worked, an evaluation of goals, and your own personal response to the session, and first thoughts about literature for the next session.

Only in-person, face-to-face, planned and documented work will be credited. No credit will be given to trainees for facilitation sessions conducted via teleconference or on-line.


Supervision [60 hours required for CAPF/CPT, 100 for PTR]

Supervision is the guidance, mentoring, and feedback provided by your mentor/supervisor individually and through facilitated group discussion of your own and, where possible, your fellow trainees' field work and written reports. Individual and group supervision help you in the selection and use of literature, goal-setting, activities, interventions, record-keeping, institutional matters, boundaries, group process, and other issues that may arise in the course of your work.

All work in preparation for the CAPF, CPT or PTR must be supervised. Supervision should follow facilitation with minimum lag time, since delayed review may be superficial. Supervision includes screening of literature and review of facilitation plans prior to sessions to avoid use of counter-therapeutic material. The mentor/supervisor provides didactic training and oversight of your field work. Creditable supervision hours are those related specifically to your practicum. The Credentials Committee requires an average of one hour of supervision for every two hours of facilitation.

You are responsible for keeping a contemporaneous record of supervision hours, logging 1:1 and group supervision hours separately. A minimum of 30 (CAPF, CPT) or 50 (PTR) of the required supervision hours must be 1:1 with your mentor/supervisor. To complete the total number of hours, supervision may be provided by a group facilitated by your mentor/supervisor. Mentor/supervisors work collaboratively; if you plan to work with a population with specialized needs (e.g. kids at risk, prisoners, trauma survivors) you may wish to arrange to obtain a portion of your supervision from a M/S who has expertise in that area. This should only be done with your primary mentor/supervisor's agreement; he or she will help you coordinate the arrangements. Individual supervision may also be provided by another mental health professional with prior approval of your mentor/supervisor and the Credentials Committee. A 3:1 ratio is the standard (30 hours of supervision from a mental health professional who is not a poetry therapist equals 10 hours of supervision from your mentor/supervisor).

Mentor/Supervisors may supervise trainees either individually or in groups trainees online and/or by teleconference--as well as in face-to-face meetings--to fulfill the required number of individual supervision sessions.


Peer Poetry Therapy Experience [60 hours required for CAPF/CPT/PTR]

Peer poetry therapy experience consists of the hours you spend as a participant in a poetry therapy group, responding to applied literature personally. Guided by the mentor/supervisor, group members have the opportunity to rotate through the role of leader, selecting materials and activities, and applying techniques, evaluating each session, and receiving feedback from other members. Peer experience may also be acquired through attendance at specifically designated programs at the NAPT annual conference or through participation as a group member in a developmental poetry therapy group led by a CAPF, CPT or PTR, or one in supervised training. Facilitating the training peer group is credited as peer group experience.

If participating in a poetry therapy peer group represents a major geographic or physical hardship, you may – with the prior approval of and with appropriate documentation to your mentor/supervisor and the Credentials Committee – count a maximum of 20 hours of peer experience in any of the other recognized creative arts therapies or related experiential groups offered under the auspices of a recognized leader or organization. You may also, if in-person peer group participation is not available for you, request and attain up to 10 hours of teleconference peer experience provided the sessions are facilitated by a credentialed mentor/supervisor who has been trained in the strategies of teleconference leadership and/or approved by NFBPT.

No credit will be approved for peer poetry therapy experience hours conducted on-line, whether in real time or not, with the exception of those conducted by mentor/supervisors currently approved to offer such sessions. The Federation has no plans to approve additional mentor/supervisors to offer such on-line experiences.


Institutional Experience (PTR Only) [165 hours required*]

Institutional work includes documented time spent in staff conferences, clinical conferences, ward activities, interdisciplinary team meetings, record-keeping, and other clinical requirements.


Other Meritorious Learning (PTR Only) [100 hours required]

Meritorious learning includes relevant study and experience which will result in your improved ability to conduct poetry therapy. It may also comprise articles you will research and write, workshops you will present, and plans for independent study, with approval by and documentation for your mentor/supervisor. Your mentor/supervisor will provide you with guidelines for fulfillment of this requirement.

The training requirements for the CAPF/CPT are summarized here, and the PTR are summarized here.