MsTania Long

Tania is a Registered Play Therapist with extensive clinical experience across paediatric health and educational settings. She is the director of a private practice, Play Therapy: Canberra, dedicated to play therapy and community child life therapy. Tania currently works as a Child Life Therapist across the paediatric department at the Canberra Women’s, Youth and Children’s Hospital. This dual clinical–academic role ensures ongoing engagement with direct practice and alignment with current professional, ethical, and practice standards.

Tania is a Lecturer in Play Therapy (Industry Professional) for the play therapy program at Deakin University and contributes to curriculum delivery in therapeutic medical play, foundations of play therapy, alongside providing clinical supervision. Her teaching is strongly informed by contemporary clinical practice and focuses on the integration of theory, ethical decision-making, and reflective practice. Tania is committed to developing students’ clinical competence, professional identity, and confidence in working therapeutically with children and families.

Tania’s practice frameworks are child-centred and child-led, grounded in attachment-based, trauma-informed, and neurodiversity-affirming approaches. She works primarily with children aged 3–13 years and their families and her areas of clinical expertise include therapeutic medical play, paediatric palliative care, complex developmental trauma, nature-based play, and systemic practice. Tania is a passionate advocate of play and witnesses the therapeutic power of play in learning, growing and healing. She is currently completing a postgraduate degree in psychology and maintains a strong commitment to supervision, lifelong learning, and evidence-informed practice.