Sheri Mitschelen, is the Practice Owner of Crossroads Family Counseling Center and a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) in the Commonwealth of Virginia and a Registered Play Therapy-Supervisor (RPT-S). She is also the co-founder, President of The Heart Leaf Center a non-profit program providing play therapy counseling to children and families in Northern VA.
Nurturing the emotional health of children and families has been the focus of her work for over 30 years. She has experience working with children struggling with home and school behavior, anxiety, depression, children who have sensory integration issues, families working through separation and/or divorce and families that are in conflict. She is also a Certified Positive Discipline Parent Educator having expertise to help parents with challenging behaviors and struggles with their children. She also provides supervision for social workers working toward their licensure and play therapy certification.
In 2009, she was voted as “One of the Best Child Therapists in the Area”, by her peers in the Washingtonian magazine and in 2023 received the prestigious Anne Stewart Play Therapy award by the VA Play Therapy Association, recognized as a a top contributor in the field of Play Therapy.
Along with her therapy and supervision practice, she is the Past President for the Virginia Association for Play Therapy (VAPT) serving as President for four years. Sheri is passionate about play therapy and created a play therapy training program through Crossroads Family Counseling Center to provide low cost, high quality Play Therapy training to professionals in the community and is an APT Provider. She also has presented on numerous play therapy topics locally, nationally and internationally for many organization such as: The Association for Play Therapy, The Midatlanic Play Therapy Institute, Virgina Association for Play Therapy, University of Maryland Continuing Education program as well as Fairfax County schools.
She also has been an Adjunct Faculty member at Virginia Tech., Marriage and Family Therapy Master’s Program teaching Play Therapy, an Adjunct faculty member at George Mason University and Catholic University of America in the School of Social Work.
Sheri received her Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in Psychology from Ohio University in 1987 and earned a Master of Social Work (M.S.W.) at University of Pittsburgh in 1989. She went on to complete a Family Therapy Certificate with the Alexandria Family Therapy Institute, an Infant/Child Mental Health Certificate at the Washington School of Psychiatry, an Adoption Competency Certificate from the University of Maryland while also completing her training to receive her Play Therapy certification and the ability to supervise play therapists. She is also trained in Theraplay® which focuses on strengthening the parent child attachment relationship.
For more about play therapy and a quote by Sheri explaining why it is important to teach parents to be “play therapists” with their kids read, Social Work Today: The Power of Play Therapy.
Contact: sheri@crossroadsfamilycc.com, 703-472-1725
