I love supporting children and teenagers on their therapeutic journey. Watching them grow in confidence, developing autonomy, strengthening their emotional wellbeing and enhancing their resilience is the whole reason I do what I do.
Each child’s support is shaped by their own goals and choices through tailored sessions, drawing upon my 25 plus years’ experience and ever-growing therapeutic toolbox. Always found in my session bag is a range of creative arts and craft materials, and a selection of games and imaginative play items.
Often the child’s grown up will wonder how certain techniques or strategies used will help their child. They will question how playing board games, or playing with animal figures or quite literally impersonating animals, having tea parties, or even a game of football, will help their child talk about their difficulties and what is going on in their lives.
It is often seen as the child “just playing” and them “having fun” but it is so much more than that.
The grown-ups are correct in that the sessions are about having fun as no-one wants to attend a weekly event that is boring, tiresome and emotionally challenging. The sessions need to be engaging as they need to help in establishing a strong, safe and trusted relationship. The foundations for any therapeutic support. It’s from this secure relationship that everything else then grows.
From these solid foundations we can then use the toys and creative materials to explore feelings and experiences; express emotions in ways that do not necessitate spoken words, particularly when words are sometimes too difficult to find or say out loud. Younger children may not yet have developed the language skills to verbalise everything they want to say, and some older children may find direct talking simply too difficult, so instead they have the freedom and opportunity to explore, express and communicate through play, creativity and imagination.