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Monday ,Thursday, Fridays are my private practice days

Availability varies best to contact to arrange and discuss particular needs. Whether that would be in school hours or after etc.

Hello! I am Christine. I am an experienced child and adolescent counsellor using play and the creative arts. For many children Feelings and emotions can be so overwhelming at times and hard to manage. Using the therapeutic relationship we create, I hope to help them move forward. I aim to bring warmth laughter, playfulness and create a safe space to really ‘see them’. To gain a better understanding of what they need. After completing my BA honours in Fine Art, I gained experience working with children in children's homes and in a sure start centre. I wanted to be able to do more and have better skills to help children with. I then retrained through IATE Institute for Arts in Therapy and Education to become an Integrative Child Counsellor. The skill set I have gained through my training and experience enables me to function as an emotional regulator. I work therapeutically to be able to engage with children, provide accurate empathy and non-possessive warmth and accurately empathise with a child’s pain, grief, torment, rage and frustration with a non-shaming understanding. The sessions work through a variety of art mediums to facilitate expression of the feelings that may have been ‘bottled up’ or become too awful to bear, this has often resulted in all manner of disruptive and destructive behaviours. The mediums include art, paint, mark making, sandtray, puppets, clay, movement storytelling and poetry. My work is predominantly in schools. I have worked with a full spectrum of school ages from early years to school leavers.When I start with the child/children I always set up an age-appropriate contract stating what I do and how I work. To ensure boundaries consistency and transparency, date and times of sessions etc. I also explain confidentially of the child counsellor relationship. Always working to safeguarding procedures. Sessions are always child lead.

The session is 45-50 minutes long and takes place in a special room in my house which is equipped with toys and art materials. Your child will have their own significant box that will keep their work safe for the duration of the therapy. It will be a safe quiet place free from intrusions to meet weekly. The young person is allowed to use the time in any way they want to.

The only rules are that they are not allowed to hurt themselves or the therapist, and if I was worried about their safety, I would have to let appropriate people within safe guarding know.

I would initially send out some paperwork with some questions before the therapy could start.  Upon receipt of that I would invite you to either a phone conversation or a meeting in person to go through any concerns or question both you or I could have. All the paperwork would cover my terms and conditions.