Play and Creative Arts Therapist

Parent-Child Attachment Play Practitioner

Autplay Practitioner

Located in Dartington Hall Estate, near Totnes, I offer a nurturing and playful space where children's feelings and experiences can be safely explored in a range of play forms and materials from sand to role play to art to board games to curling up in a den.

I have been providing support for children and young people with social, emotional and mental health difficulties since 2012, becoming a fully qualified Play Therapist in 2016. I have provided Play Therapy sessions for children and young people with a range of difficulties and life experiences, including children with developmental trauma and those with autism and ADHD-related trauma. I support children and young people from birth to 16.

I became a play therapist following an experience I had as an Early Years professional, witnessing how a young boy whose baby brother died, processed his feelings and experiences playing with DUPLO. It opened my eyes to the power of play to support emotional healing. Since then I have been repeatedly amazed by how deeply children process and organise traumatic feelings and experiences when they feel that they have a safe space to play and express themselves. Establishing this sense of safety is not as easy for some children as others, because for some their life experiences mean that they find it hard to trust adults. Therefore, much of my training and practice focused on how to establish a sense of safety such that a child feels that they can explore their most painful and frightening feelings.

The therapy model I use is Child-Centred Play Therapy, which means that the child leads the process and I stay alongside them in their process. This trust I place in them to lead has proven to be hugely beneficial for those who are anxious or avoidant and those whose experiences have impacted their trust in adults to lead. This trust builds self-esteem and resilience, as well as enhancing their trust in me.

My role as Play Therapist is to ensure that the child feels safe to express all feelings, no matter how big. This requires that children know that I am accepting of all of their thoughts and feelings and will support them to express these safely such that they do not cause harm to themselves or others.

I also like to work with the whole person and the systems around them to explore what barriers might be in place in their environment, relationships and/or within themselves that prevent them from being able to emotionally thrive. As such, I have written and delivered training for family practitioners and teachers in attachment and trauma-informed approaches to behaviours that challenge and provided consultancy work in schools supporting in the construction of holistic behaviour support plans.

I work closely with parents to strengthen their relationship with their child using the Parent-Child Attachment Play model, as well as drawing on elements of Theraplay and PACE. I am also passionate about working within communities, providing projects that draw people together, provide support and reduce isolation.

Following the diagnosis of my son as autistic and my own emerging awareness of my neurodivergence, I became increasingly interested in neurodivergence and mental health. Although it is known that neurodivergent people are more susceptible to trauma and, consequentially an increase in anxiety and dissociative responses, there is so little that is understood about how neurodivergence impacts our processing of trauma. Although I have found the low demand, child-led, sensory soothing, and non-judgemental approach of play therapy to be very effective with autistic, ADHDers and those with a PDA profile, I have trained in Autplay Therapy to strengthen my understanding of best practice when supporting neurodivergent young people.

As a single parent raising an autistic son who struggled to attend school, I empathise with parents who have been on a similar journey. I am familiar with the stresses and strains within the SEN system and volunteer my time supporting parents struggling to navigate the system.

If you would like more information please contact me: hello@free2bme.org.uk