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Child and adolescent therapist skills for your resume and career

Updated January 8, 2025

2 min read

Quoted experts

Dr. Andrew Wiley Ph.D.,

Dr. Benjamin Jeppsen

Below we've compiled a list of the most critical child and adolescent therapist skills. We ranked the top skills for child and adolescent therapists based on the percentage of resumes they appeared on. For example, 24.2% of child and adolescent therapist resumes contained social work as a skill. Continue reading to find out what skills a child and adolescent therapist needs to be successful in the workplace.

15 child and adolescent therapist skills for your resume and career

2. Patients

Here's how child and adolescent therapists use patients:

Assisted patients in establishing an alcohol/drug free lifestyle by increasing their understanding of their pathological relationship to mood/mind altering chemicals.
Provided individual, family, and group therapy with chemical dependency patients ensuring rapid movement toward positive clinical outcomes.

3. Substance Abuse

Here's how child and adolescent therapists use substance abuse:

Licensed Mental Health Counselor Children's Therapist Individual and Family Therapy Adolescent Substance Abuse
Provided coordination of substance abuse treatment in a quasi-military environment with at-risk adolescents.

4. Community Resources

Community resources are a set of resources that are used in the day to day life of people which improves their lifestyle in some way. People, sites or houses, and population assistance can come under the services offered by community resources.

Here's how child and adolescent therapists use community resources:

Assist parents in finding community resources that upon discharge pt can use to obtain pharmacological and rehabilitation assistance.
Provided case management services to assist families in securing various community resources.

5. Group Therapy Sessions

Here's how child and adolescent therapists use group therapy sessions:

Facilitated individual and group therapy sessions within an intensive outpatient rehabilitation setting.
Conducted individual and group therapy sessions with children K-6th grade at a Psychiatric Day Treatment facility.

6. Mental Health Assessments

Here's how child and adolescent therapists use mental health assessments:

Maintain professional documentation of services, write mental health assessments, treatment summaries, discharge reports and recommendations to Family Court.
Led adult and children groups, performed intake and mental health assessments, and individual sessions.

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7. Discharge Planning

Here's how child and adolescent therapists use discharge planning:

Participated in interdisciplinary team for treatment planning and discharge planning.
Handled discharge planning to help navigate a safe environment for those not ready to return to their home.

8. Clinical Supervision

Clinical supervision refers to how practicing nurses get professional and moral support from their experienced colleagues. The practice aims to promote their ability to make a concrete decision that values the patient's well-being.

Here's how child and adolescent therapists use clinical supervision:

Provide clinical supervision to Case Managers and interim program supervision during the Clinical Supervisor's absence and maternity leave.
Provided clinical supervision and clinical training for the residential staff.

9. Eating Disorders

Here's how child and adolescent therapists use eating disorders:

Identify and diagnose eating disorders and refer clients to appropriate treatment services.
Pursued training in the treatment of eating disorders.

10. Therapy Services

Here's how child and adolescent therapists use therapy services:

Provided individual assessment, treatment planning and psychotherapy services to culturally diverse children, adolescents, and adults.
Provided in office and community-based therapy services to children and families.

11. Rehabilitation

Here's how child and adolescent therapists use rehabilitation:

Conduct pre-authorization assessments for clients receiving Medicaid services to ensure continuation of services needed for rehabilitation.
Facilitate psychosocial rehabilitation group therapy to adolescent with co-occurring disorders.

12. Compassion

Here's how child and adolescent therapists use compassion:

Teach group classes for parents and caregivers to help them use compassion, mindfulness and relaxation strategies in daily life.
Formed therapeutic alliances through active listening, empathy and compassion.

13. Family Therapy Sessions

Here's how child and adolescent therapists use family therapy sessions:

Conducted bio/psycho/social assessment, develop master treatment plan, facilitated individual, group and family therapy sessions, didactic lectures.
Conduct family therapy sessions and individual counseling for adolescents and children.

14. Mental Health

Mental health is the state of wellbeing in which an individual can cope with the regular stresses and tensions of life, and can work productively without having any emotional or psychological breakdown. Mental health is essential for a person of any age and helps them make the right decisions in their life.

Here's how child and adolescent therapists use mental health:

Provided outreach services and public speaking/training for Native American mental health conferences.
Provided therapeutic interventions to children with significant mental health diagnosis.

15. Intake Assessments

Here's how child and adolescent therapists use intake assessments:

Conducted individual intake assessments and interviews, crisis intervention/telephone sessions and well-being checks for all clients.
Performed individual/group psychotherapy, general counseling, family therapy, intake assessments, and client monitoring.

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What skills help Child And Adolescent Therapists find jobs?

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What skills stand out on child and adolescent therapist resumes?

Dr. Andrew Wiley Ph.D.

Associate Professor, Kent State University

Graduates from the special education program at Kent State demonstrate adaptive expertise. The "expertise" is in specially designed instruction and interventions in academics, life skills, social skills, communication - whatever the special educational needs of students with disabilities may be. The "adaptive" refers to the ability to collaborate with other professionals to solve problems. What stands out on resumes is expert training in both research-based special education practices and the ability to function within a team. Kent State's special education program provides both.

What soft skills should all child and adolescent therapists possess?

Dr. Benjamin Jeppsen

Associate Professor, Augustana University

Cultural awareness, knowledge, and skills are important, including openness to work with people with varying religious views. The ability to easily connect with others and put people at ease in your presence is valuable in working with clients and collaborating with a treatment team. As more and more agencies interact with the medical field, spiritual leaders, and other holistic approaches to health, counselors need to see their role in an interdisciplinary approach to healing and work effectively with other departments. With teletherapy/virtual therapy, just the simple difficulty of creating eye contact when one's camera is not directly aligned with their viewscreen can complicate important connections in the therapeutic relationship. Learning to effectively connect through screens is essential.

What hard/technical skills are most important for child and adolescent therapists?

Dr. Benjamin Jeppsen

Associate Professor, Augustana University

Obviously, mastering the technology used in teletherapy and virtual counseling is essential. Further, the use of computer programs for therapy notes, documentation, and diagnosis is also important. Assessment and psychometric abilities are also important as psychotherapy research has been very clear about the important role of outcome measurement and objective assessment in psychotherapy. When prospective clinicians demonstrate the ability to work with numbers (and the software needed to make them useful), they show an openness to the objective assessment of their work.

What child and adolescent therapist skills would you recommend for someone trying to advance their career?

Sonia Manuel-Dupont Ph.D.

Associate Professor, Utah State University

If a student takes a gap year, I advise them to look for opportunities to build the skills listed above. Often this comes from community engagement and volunteer work. If the work situation does not align with the intended graduate work, the student should look for volunteer work to practice these skills.

What type of skills will young child and adolescent therapists need?

Dr. Eva Moya Ph.D.

Professor, The University of Texas

Graduates of the social work profession need to be able to work with individuals, families, groups, organizations, and mobilize communities to bring about social, economic, political, or environmental change, in addition to being involved in social policy development.

Skills in research, to study social issues, with the intention of developing social policy or micro-level approaches to practice to improve people's lives, and training in relation to multiculturalism, cultural competence, cultural humility practice is vital.

Key skills include:

Collaboration

Critical thinking

-Ethics in evidence based-practice

Assessment, intervention, and evaluation

Social work competencies to inform behaviors.

Administration and management

Community practice

Policy practice

Do you want to know more?

List of child and adolescent therapist skills to add to your resume

The most important skills for a child and adolescent therapist resume and required skills for a child and adolescent therapist to have include:

Social Work
Patients
Substance Abuse
Community Resources
Group Therapy Sessions
Mental Health Assessments
Discharge Planning
Clinical Supervision
Eating Disorders
Therapy Services
Rehabilitation
Compassion
Family Therapy Sessions
Mental Health
Intake Assessments
Therapeutic Interventions
Therapeutic Services

Mental Health Issues
Crisis Management
Foster Care
Therapy Counseling
Crisis Intervention
Medicaid
Clinical Services
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
Psychosocial Assessments
Individual Therapy Sessions
Child Abuse
TF-CBT
Behavior Management
Sexual Abuse
Crisis Situations
Art Therapy
Clinical Documentation

Community Agencies
Mental Health Disorders
ADHD
Conflict Resolution
Discharge Summaries
DBT
Treatment Plan
Domestic Violence
Anger Management
Diagnostic Assessments
Risk Youth
Behavioral Issues
DCFS
Team Planning
DSM-IV
Behavioral Problems

Updated January 8, 2025

Zippia Team

Editorial Staff

The Zippia Research Team has spent countless hours reviewing resumes, job postings, and government data to determine what goes into getting a job in each phase of life. Professional writers and data scientists comprise the Zippia Research Team.

Updated January 8, 2025

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