Working with Children and Young People
Working with children and young people might not look like your typical "counselling". There is no couch to lie on and no doctor taking notes.
01
Coming into the Therapy Room
Making the space feel safe is priority number 1. For some, this might be as simple as coming in and finding something on the bookshelf that looks interesting. For others, it takes a little more time. We strongly believe in person first, outcomes second.
What does that look like?
Maybe a parent or carer will join us for introductions or for a block of shorter sessions to get settled. Maybe this is sitting outside in reception for a while. We'll work this out together
02
Getting Comfortable
Next, we take the time to build the relationship. There's no success if clients aren't feeling safe. This is where we might use games, books, colouring, painting, even SLIME!! No one thing will work for everyone, so we keep the book case stocked for all varieties of people and situations. Our aim here is to allow our clients to start to settle into the space, and feel confident in their environment.
03
Safety
Over time, we hope that we can build some safety and our clients feel they can share things. This can happen during the first session, this might take much longer. We might do one block of sessions and achieve all the outcomes you set out to achieve, we might have to do a few smaller blocks of sessions just to secure safety for the young person.
There's no one size fits all time scale to this and that can be daunting, but we'll be there to answer questions for any parents or carers who might have concerns or questions.
04
Therapy
You might notice that the games, colouring, painting, all stay. Much of the work with younger clients is indirect: modelling positive relationships, sharing thoughts and feelings through stories and experiences. Our young people get a chance to share freely, sometimes without realising they were even doing it. Sometimes it is more directs: it can be a lot of talking, sharing, emotions, and feelings. Often this might be demonstrated as behaviours, we set out to see what caused that behaviour. Having extensive training and experience with children and young people, we can confidently explore with our clients, and begin to understand and work with them towards their desired outcomes.
Towards Calmer Waters.