Maaike Geschwindt
Co-Director
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 freely. I discovered that 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: free2bmetherapy@gmail.com or maaike@catdevon.org.uk 07979123969
Gin Farrow-Jones
Co-Director
Dramatherapist
Environmental Arts Therapist
Since graduating in dramatherapy in 2006, I have worked as a creative arts therapist with a wide range of populations and ages. In 2016 I joined a multi- agency support team (MAST) delivering targeted interventions to vulnerable Primary School children in both small groups and 1-2-1 therapy.
My passionate belief in creativity’s ability to empower individuals to find unique solutions to their life challenges stems from an arts and teaching background in non-mainstream education. However, my lightbulb moment that I wanted to be a creative arts therapist, to enable sustained transformational change in peoples’ lives, arrived when teaching drama at a residential home for children in care.
Creative arts therapies support both adults and children experiencing a range of difficulties, including transitions, experiences of loss and grief (simple and complicated) associated with entering the care system, bereavement, divorce, separation. Issues relating to children’s difficulties accessing the Curriculum learning, friendship, bullying and identity make Creative Arts Therapies the first choice for early interventions for Schools and parents.
Creative arts therapies efficacy lies in its use of metaphor, story, movement, puppetry, and creativity. I offer non- confrontational ways for all clients to effectively engage with, and explore feelings, behaviours as well as possibilities for emotional regulation and healthy self-expression, body awareness, communication, relationships, roles, and narratives, whether difficulties hark to a known event in the past or are emerging in the present. In private practice I offer Environmental Arts Therapy to young adults, working in woods and the Coast.
Specialist interests are Developmental Complex Trauma, specifically relating to Looked-After-Children, although relevant to children with mild to moderate learning disabilities, children with Autistic Spectrum Conditions, as well as adult clients. Integrating several theoretical orientations, my practice offers a person-centred, trauma–informed PACE approach side-by-side a dramatic developmental model of play, besides being informed by psychodynamic, relational and attachment focussed models for the requisite repair to disrupted primary attachment bonds.
As a member of the MAST team, I co-developed and co-delivered CPD training to school staff in Domestic Abuse, and ‘Supporting Children in School with Nature’.
My recent professional development includes delivering theory and experiential workshops for trainee therapists (Creative Arts Therapy Foundation Course, Hertford Education Child Development Degree Course. University of Plymouth). Sharing expertise through training young professionals is fun and very rewarding and stretches my own growing edge.
I am skilled in creating therapeutic alliances and a safe, playful space to support people with constancy, creativity, and my compassionate, non-judgemental presence. Prospective clients: I’ll invite you to collaborate, and start where you are, then the essential conditions you need to catalyse you own healing potential and to make change in the direction of your choice, and at your pace, are created, as well as celebrated.
Spending time in Nature, dancing, and taking all-weather family dog walks on beaches are some of my favourite ways of resourcing myself.Contact me at gin@catdevon.org.uk
Caz Hoar
Dramatherapist and Environmental Arts Therapist
It is always my intention to offer work that empowers and supports an individual to find connection and expression, in a way that is personal to them. Believing that empowering a person to find their own answers and choices with in the therapy process supports greater well-being and the potential for change.
I have 19 years of experience working as a Dramatherapist. In the early years, I worked extensively with adults with physical and learning disability whose needs ranged from mild to profound. Working with story, where all sounds and movements made were welcomed and included enabled individuals who were often overlooked and misunderstood the opportunity to express themselves and be witnessed. It was an honour to offer weekly 1 to 1 therapeutic music sessions to profoundly physically disabled young people which generated joy and greater communication.
For the last 15 years, I have worked as a Dramatherapist based in schools supporting vulnerable children, their families and the professionals around the child. I have also worked as a member of a Multi-Agency support Team, in conjunction with other professionals providing timely intervention and support to children and their families. I was a facilitator on the CPD training programme within the multi-agency team, delivering training to both school staff and colleagues.
I currently work as a therapist with in a fostering agency, supporting young people and their carers’ and working closely with other professionals involved in supporting the child. Areas that I have experience of working in are around; bereavement and loss, supporting children and adults affected by attachment disorders and abuse, systemic trauma, and the building of resilience and trust.
I am also an Environmental Art therapist and facilitate work in nature with nature's cycles and metaphors to support the therapy process. I believe that spending time in, and deepening connection to nature, is everyone’s birth right. This work can promote self-regulation, connection to oneself and to nature and support the building of resources. I have experience of working 1 to 1 with adults and children and have co facilitated day group workshops.
Music and singing are important resources for me in my life and I have found them to be invaluable in my work, promoting expression and play. It was a privilege for me to co-facilitate a series of music performances in elderly people's residential homes and an honour to hear the stories and powerful memories evoked in response from the residents.
Mindfulness, visualisation and movement techniques are also invaluable personal resources and when appropriate, are offered in my work.To arrange an initial conversation please contact me caz@catdevon.org.uk
