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Advanced Embodied Cultural Humility for Certified Synergetic Play Therapists/Providers

Presented by Liliana Baylon, LMFT-S, RPT-S, SPTI’s Cultural Ambassador & Mili Sarmiento Shoemaker, LPC, RPT-S, SPTI’s Supervisor Trainer

Live online • two-part series • 6 hours Certified SPTs & Play Providers

Deepening Identity and Systemic Insight Through Experiential Integration

Culture lives in the nervous system.

It shapes what feels safe.
It shapes what feels threatening.
It shapes how meaning is made in the playroom—by both the client and the therapist.

This advanced two-part experiential program is designed for Certified Synergetic Play Therapists and Play Providers who are ready to deepen their practice by integrating cultural humility, identity, and systemic awareness directly into the moment-to-moment SPT process.

After certification, many clinicians begin asking a new kind of question:

How do I hold regulation, attunement, and authenticity when culture, power, identity, language, and systemic realities are actively shaping the relational field?

This program takes that question to its next level.

Who This Program Is For

This advanced program is designed specifically for Certified Synergetic Play Therapists/Providers who already hold a strong foundation in the SPT model and are ready for the next layer of integration.

You already understand regulation, authenticity, attunement, and the therapist’s role in shaping the relational field.

Now the question becomes:

How do you hold those foundations when culture, identity, power, language, migration history, and systemic realities are actively shaping the room in real time?

This program is especially relevant if you:

Work with culturally diverse children and families

Notice that your most complex clinical moments involve unspoken cultural or systemic dynamics

Want to respond more effectively to cultural ruptures and misattunements

Feel the impact of your own identity and lived experience in the therapy room and want to work with it more intentionally

Supervise or teach others and want a stronger, more embodied framework for cultural humility and accountability

Want to deepen your ability to stay grounded, curious, and relational under pressure

This is not introductory material. It is an advanced, experiential program that builds on your existing SPT knowledge and supports you in translating that knowledge into real-time clinical presence.

What You Will Learn

This program focuses on helping you move from understanding cultural humility conceptually to practicing it in the moment.

You will develop the ability to:

Track how cultural identities, lived experiences, and systemic influences shape nervous system activation and relational dynamics
Recognize how your own embodied responses inform (and sometimes limit) attunement
Stay regulated and present when cultural difference, power, or tension arises
Identify subtle and overt cultural ruptures as they emerge in the relational field
Initiate culturally grounded repair using SPT principles of regulation, attunement, and authenticity
Engage your authentic self as a culturally responsive instrument of change

Throughout the program, you will work with real clinical scenarios, embodied exercises, and reflective practices that support immediate integration into your work.

This is not about getting it “right.”
It is about developing the capacity to notice, stay, and respond with greater awareness and care.

How You Will Learn

This program is intentionally experiential, interactive, and practice-based.

Rather than focusing on lecture or passive learning, we will work directly with:

Embodied exercises

to help you track your own nervous system in real time

Case-based discussions

grounded in real clinical complexity

Relational reflections

that deepen awareness of identity, bias, and systemic context

Live exploration of rupture and repair

through an SPT lens

You will be invited to slow down, notice, reflect, and practice—developing skills that are immediately transferable to your clinical work, supervision, and teaching.

Because cultural humility is not something you master intellectually.
It is something you practice, moment by moment, in relationship.

Why This Program Matters

Culture lives in the nervous system.

Identity, lived experience, privilege, and systemic realities all shape how safety is experienced, how meaning is made, and how connection is formed—or disrupted—in the playroom.

For Certified Synergetic Play Therapists/Providers, this means that cultural humility cannot remain a cognitive understanding. It must become an embodied capacity.

In the moments that matter most—
when a rupture is subtle but real,
when your body reacts before you understand why,
when difference, power, or systemic harm enter the relational field—

your ability to stay present, regulated, and relational becomes the intervention.

This program supports you in developing that capacity.

Learn to:

Track cultural and systemic dynamics as they unfold in real time

Recognize and repair misattunements with greater clarity and care

Stay connected without moving into urgency, defensiveness, or withdrawal

Strengthen safety, dignity, and connection across differences

The result is a more grounded, responsive, and culturally attuned clinical presence—one that honors the nervous system as both biological and cultural and expands your capacity to support healing in every playroom.

Program Details

Part 1

Thursday, June 2, 2026

2:00–5:00 PM MST

Part 2

Thursday, June 16, 2026

2:00–5:00 PM MST

Format

Live, online, experiential training

Recording

This program is live only. There will be no recording.

Prerequisite

Completion of the Synergetic Play Therapy Certification Program

Meet Your Trainers

Liliana Baylon, MBA, LMFT-S, RPT-S, AAMFT Approved Supervisor, EMDRIA-Approved Consultant, & ICEEFT-Certified Supervisor

Liliana is a bilingual therapist, consultant, trainer, and speaker specializing in trauma, migration, and multicultural mental health. Her work is grounded in attachment science, nervous system regulation, and cultural humility, with a focus on helping clinicians and organizations better support migrants, multilingual families, and culturally diverse communities. Through engaging presentations, consultation, and supervision, Liliana integrates EMDR, EFT, SPT, and play therapy with systemic awareness and evidence-based practice. She is known for translating complex clinical concepts into meaningful, practical strategies that help professionals deepen attunement, strengthen relationships, and respond to trauma with greater compassion, confidence, and cultural responsiveness.

Milagros Sarmiento-Shoemaker, LPC, RPT-S

You may know Milagros “Mili” Sarmiento-Shoemaker as a bilingual therapist, supervisor, and trainer within the Synergetic Play Therapy community—but what truly sets her apart is the depth of presence and humanity she brings into every space she enters. With over 15 years of experience working with children, adults, and families, Mili integrates Synergetic Play Therapy, Gestalt Therapy, EMDR, and Family Constellations to support healing that honors both the nervous system and the larger family system. Originally from Buenos Aires, Argentina, Mili’s cross-cultural lens and lived experience as an immigrant deeply inform her work with migrant families and communities navigating trauma, belonging, and identity. She is passionate about creating spaces where people feel seen in their wholeness—where pain, resilience, and intergenerational stories can all coexist. As a supervisor, consultant, and educator, Mili is known for her warmth, authenticity, and ability to make complex concepts feel experiential and relatable. She invites clinicians to show up as their full selves, holding both curiosity and responsibility in the therapeutic relationship. Grounded, intuitive, and deeply relational, Mili reminds us that healing happens in connection—and that when we dare to be fully ourselves, we create the conditions for others to thrive.

In this talk, Liliana Baylon shares the immigrant experience—exploring trauma response, the role of children as “cultural brokers,” and the nervous system response. She invites viewers to become curious about understanding the experience and challenges of immigrants, how to support them in resettlement to a new country and what it means for their identity and their internal/external sense of safety.

Your Next Step

If you are ready to move beyond understanding cultural humility as an idea and begin living it in your clinical practice, we invite you to join us.

This program is for clinicians/providers who are willing to:

Your presence is the intervention.
Your regulation shapes safety.
Your willingness to notice and repair matters.