Our Projects

CREATIVE ARTS THERAPY DEVON CICTransformational Connections <> Empowering Lives

Our Projects
We listen to you, We design with you, We deliver for you.
Our aim is to provide bespoke mental health and well-being support for our community, drawing on our professional and personal expertise as therapists and community members.
As well as delivering one-to-one and group therapy sessions for people of all ages and abilities in Devon, we deliver a range of creative arts interventions.
Below are examples of work we are delivering or have previously delivered.
Go to our Further Information page to learn more about our referral process or how to book an event.
Further Information
Circle of Trees
Monthly environmental arts therapeutic workshops moving through the cycles of the year with nature
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The Island Club
Therapeutic story and play-based sessions for young people, focused on opportunities for self-expression and self-discovery
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Light Parenting
A 10 week parent programme that uses the creative arts as a gateway to exploring and overcoming barriers to finding connection, joy and lightness in our relationships with our children
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Nature's Play
Community outreach workshops for children and young people to engage with nature through stories and art.
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Wild Stories
Greenminds funded workshops, improving well-being through our connection with nature.
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Circle of Trees
Journey through the cycles of the celtic year in a series of environment arts therapy workshops
ABOUT THE CIRCLE OF TREES:

Our environmental arts therapists, Caz and Gin, invite you to undertake a journey in and with nature through the cycles of the year.
We will follow the Celtic Ogham (pronounced O-Am) which is the Celtic Tree calendar-beginning in November 2023 and ending the following October 2024.
The Celtic Ogham provides us with a pathway of exploration rich in metaphor and wisdom to support us in rewilding our creative natures, month by
month.

The group will have maximum of 12 participants and we will meet on the last Sunday of every month (see dates below).
A journey through all twelve months is highly recommended.
Our experiential approach is suitable for all, and no previous arts experience is required.
Arts practitioners, parents, teachers, mental health professionals, social workers, psychologists, or therapists may find this approach especially supportive.

ABOUT THE FACILITATORS:

Caz and Gin are qualified Dramatherapists and Environmental Arts Therapists. They have between them many years of experience of working with both individuals and groups as facilitators and trainers.
They provide a safely held, confidential and conducive space encouraging compassionate and creative ‘being’ that promotes wellbeing. Caz and Gin are passionate about offering work that deepens connection and care to the Land and to ourselves.
They are insured and HCPC registered. They trained on the Graduate training course with Ian Siddon Heginworth, the founder of Environmental Arts Therapy at the London Art Therapy centre. In 2022-2023 they were part of a team of co-facilitators delivering the new Post Graduate training course at the School of Environmental Arts Therapy in Exeter.

For more information about Caz and Gin, please see Our Team page.

WHAT TO EXPECT:
Attunement & sensory awareness
Creative visualisations, movement, sound, voice, song& poetry
Reciprocity and honouring of natural materialsgathered for arts making
Giving ourselves permission to be & sharing fromthe heart
Creation of personal ritual and revival of traditionalones
Noticing nourishing metaphors, associations and themesof the season

DATES:
Samhain Taster workshop Sun Oct 29th. Meetfacilitators Caz & Gin, & Poole Farm
£10 -10.15am to 12.30pm
Following Workshops are on the last Sunday of each month 1.15pm - 4.30pm
~ Winter -November 26th, December 31st, January 28th
~ Spring -February 25th, March 24th, April 28th
~ Summer -May 26th, June 23rd, July 28th
~ Autumn -August 25th, September 22nd, October 27th

COST:
£40 per workshop PAID IN ADVANCE on booking place.
£30 subsidised places available per month. Pleasecontact us to discuss. gin@catdevon.org.uk or caz@catdevon.org.uk

LOCATION:
Poole Farm, Plymouth PL6 8NF - FREEPARKING in carpark at end of Rydal Cl, Estover, Plymouth 50.407464,-4.105275 Poole Farm is accessed in 2minwalk via Bunts Lane from carpark.
Public transport from Plymouth and surroundingtowns/areas to Poole Farm
https://moovitapp.com/index/en-gb/public_transportation-Poole_Farm-South_West-site_194580526-2106

WHAT TO BRING:
Dress for the weather, layers of warm clothes, waterproofs and sturdy waterproof footwear recommended.
Warm drinks & light snacks will be provided.
All art materials will be provided.

BOOKING IS ESSENTIAL contact gin@catdevon.org.uk or caz@catdevon.org.uk
CONTACT US with your enquiry & we hope to meet with you in the wilds soon!
The Island Club
Improving Social and Emotional Skills through Play

"The lunchtime club has had such a positive impact. Two of the attendees have made good friends, which I would never have imagined and they are actually going into class, even for the morning group sessions." LSA at the school
In March last year we were approached by a school who were struggling with some children presenting with behaviour that challenges at lunchtime and more generally in school. Their behaviour was such that they could no longer be out at lunchtime and the school were looking to run a lunchtime club 5 days per week.

Together with the school we put together a package of one lunchtime club one day per week plus supervision and training for another member of staff to deliver the other 4 days.
The intervention, which the children named 'The Island Club' drew on a simple child-centred therapeutic play model, which could be easily replicated by the staff member other days of the week.

The outcomes were incredible with those children who attended regularly improving in capacity to self-regulate and demonstrating greater self-esteem. We worked with the school to tweak the intervention to improve outcomes even further such that children attending showed huge improvements in all areas of social and emotional difficulties, which improved educational attainment and willingness to engage positively in class. We have been asked to return each term to work with a different year group and each time we have had hugely positive feedback.

If you are interested in CATDevon delivering a similar intervention or creating a bespoke package with your school please contact maaike@catdevon.org.uk
Light Parenting
Creative therapeutic parenting programme supporting parents to lighten their parenting by finding ways to reconnect with the light within their child.
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We have responded to requests from parents who try so hard to form positive relationships with their children and yet continue to struggle. Parents describe feeling frustrated, overwhelmed, confused, isolated and sometimes scared when either managing their own feelings or their child's feelings.

In our experience learning how to parent isn't always enough. Often we know what kind of relationship we'd like to have but find that we struggle to form or maintain that connection. This can be for a whole range of complex reasons based on our individual life experiences, family dynamics or wider community pressures and how this feeds into our relationships with our children.

Therefore, in this programme we provide opportunity for small groups of parents with similar presenting challenges to come together and support one another as we go through a programme of creative activities designed to support parents to find ways to overcome barriers to forming safe, secure and joyful relationships with their children.

The title of the programme is inspired by the Bowl of Light in Hawaiian tradition that believes that we are all born with a bowl of light that fills with the first breath we take. We must take time to breath and nourish our bowl to keep the flame alive but also take time to empty our bowls of any heavy stones that may be blocking the light. In all the work we do we at Creative Arts Therapy Devon, we look for the light held within all of us- our capacity to shine bright given the right conditions. This programme aims to support you explore any heavy stones and how to remove them, focuses on the light in you and the light in your child and how you can breath life into both in your connection with one another.

This course is also anchored in evidence-based parenting practice, including the latest in attachment theory, trauma-informed parenting and neurosequential therapeutics. The work of Bruce Perry, Dan Siegel, Bessel Van Der Kolk, Stephen Porges and Dan Hughes and parenting models of PACE and Parent-Child Attachment Play, as a framework for the programme.

Sessions are fortnightly to provide opportunity for parents to do activities set by the therapist designed to enhance the process. Fortnightly parent-child sessions with the therapist can be booked by parents who feel they would benefit from support with this.
Sessions are delivered by our play therapist, Maaike.

Our next programme will be for parents of children with an autism diagnosis or currently on the diagnostic pathway

We have yet to release the dates but the location will be in Totnes and will start in the New Year 2024.
For more information please contact maaike@catdevon.org.uk
Nature's Play
Play and Environmental Arts Community Outreach Well-Being Workshops
Lovely to take a moment to consider what makes them happy through story and activity" (Parent feedback)
"Fascinating" (young person)
Nature's Play are workshops delivered in parks and natural spaces that invite people to join in with therapeutic playful and creative well-being activities, exploring nature as a resource for nourishment and emotional growth. Drawing on elements of Drama, Play and Environmental Arts therapies, we use stories, art, role play, music and a range of seasonal and natural materials to provide a sensory, creative and immersive experience.

The sessions are designed to be drop-in and universal to enable them to be more effective as an outreach and deliverable in a range of community settings. We were delighted to be invited by Be Buckfastleigh and Participate Arts to deliver a workshop at Hello Summer! in Buckfastleigh. We used story and art to invite the children to explore what makes their light shine and helps them to feel better when they are having a difficult day. We had such wonderful parent feedback and the comments left by he children on our feedback board definitely made our light shine!

We also received funding to deliver a workshops over 2 weeks in parks in North Stonehouse, Plymouth. Here we used art and story to help the local children begin to connect emotionally with and relate to their local wildlife. Their thoughts and reflections were inspiring. What emerged were young people valued and empowered as individuals and a group in their capacity to be guardians of the local trees.

We'd love to run more therapeutic creative, nature-based workshops for young people in Devon. If you are interested please contact caz@catdevon.org.uk
Wild Stories
Improving well-being by increasing our connection with nature

"The whole Story gathering and telling process, from start to finish, has been such a joy for our children." (Foster Carer feedback for the group process)

"Ours was the last story to be heard and both D and V had been completely absorbed in the goings on... D gave a little squeal of delight when she heard one of the actors use her actual words” (feedback from the final performance)
Funded by GreenMinds (https://greenmindsplymouth.com) our Wild Stories project aim was to enhance the relationship between the residents of Plymouth and Nature. Through play and art, participants were immersed in nature experiencing through emotion, beauty, tradition, compassion and the senses which research has shown to be 5 pathways to nature connectedness.

Wild Stories ran between March 2022 – June 2022 with a total of 33 participants divided into 4 groups regularly attending the series of 10 weekly workshops. In June, we held a culminating performance sharing and celebrating the non-human perspective stories and art that the participants had generated. The performance was attended by members of the local community in Stonehouse and was a moving and inspiring tribute to nature, further enhanced by Mirror Mirror ( Playback Theatre Company's (https://www.facebook.com/mirrormirrortheatre/) wonderfully intuitive, improvised performance of the stories shared.

We have received funding to redeliver in the spring with looked-after children in 2 primary schools. We would love to repeat this with groups of all ages from all walks of life, across Devon, so please do get in touch gin@catdevon.org.uk if you would like to discuss further
School-Based Anxiety
Providing support for parents and professionals struggling with children refusing to attend school
"
"I feel more aware of what I need to nourish myself, in order to support my son."
(Parent who attended Wood for the Trees Workshop)

Wow!!! Thank you for running this inspirational and powerful workshop... In a world where there is not a lot of help for families like mine, I really appreciate the positively impactful help you gave" (Parent who attended the webinar The Empowering Parents Program: School-Based Anxiety)
Following consultation with the #NotFineinSchool community, we have been delivering a range of support for parents and carers whose children are struggling to attend school.
We identified:
A need to reduce parental isolation in an accessible way without needing to leave their anxious children
A need to increase knowledge and understanding to empower parents in the face of confusing and sometimes harmful advice
Therapeutic support for parents sometimes overwhelmed and/or traumaised by the challenges faced by their child's school refusal.
A need for parents and professionals to have shared understanding so that they can work together to support the child

In response we have been delivering the following:
Monthly online support groups
Repeated delivery of the Empowering Parents webinar sharing an evidence-based approach to developing a support plan in response to school-based anxiety. We are in the process of constructing a version for professionals working with families and young people.
The delivery of a workshop at The Glade in Dartington to replenish and resource exhausted parents.
If you would like more information about the current support we offer please email maaike@catdevon.org.uk
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