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Therapeutic Support

Aim

Family Care Associates provides therapeutic support to children placed in their care that matches the child's needs and is tailored to their specific placement objectives.

Two levels of service are available although not mutually exclusive.

• Our internal Therapeutic Services - see below.
• Family Care Associates has established with a major provider of children’s health services that can, if necessary, mirror and improve upon the CAMHS services that are in such short supply in many parts of the country. This partnership has been forged to build upon the excellent work pioneered by one of our units, Lyth Hill, in working with children and Young People who might in other circumstances have been considered to be at too great a risk living in a children’s home setting but who, as they move on, are proof that Every Child Matters can sometimes be evidenced. For details of this service please contact us direct - Ed Nixon, Group Operations Manager).

Therapeutic Services

Therapeutic Services provide a systemic range of services that meet the needs of children and young people and those who care for them.

The Therapeutic Services Team have over fifteen years experience of working therapeutically with children and young people who have experienced a diverse range of difficulties including multiple placement breakdowns, exhibit challenging behaviours, have difficulty forming attachments, are underachieving or are withdrawn at school and children who have experienced abuse and/or trauma.
The Therapeutic Services Team have experience of working in a range of settings including, schools refuges, residential homes, colleges, universities and family centres and work alongside all those involved in the care for children and young people including foster carers, parents, social workers, teachers and previous therapists, providing support, consultancy and training in order to achieve best outcomes for children.

Children and Young People

Therapeutic Services currently provide individual and group support, to children and young people. Therapeutic support is offered as a means of helping the child or young person come to terms with issues that are troubling them.

There are some essential qualities, which distinguish our work from other kinds of help. We have adopted the therapeutic play model, which is humanistic and integrative in approach and works because it is the child's natural way of expressing, communicating and coping with feelings. The therapeutic worker provides a play setting within safe boundaries offering the child a 'containing' relationship in which the child's anxieties can be borne and thought about. Attentiveness and reflective listening are the workers most effective tools and facilitate the development of self-control, self-responsibility and appropriate self-esteem. We are reluctant to use any prescriptive or diagnostic perspective.

‘Therapeutic play is the dynamic process between child and therapeutic worker in which the child explores at his or her own pace and with his or her own agenda, those issues, past and current, conscious and unconscious, which are affecting their life in the present. The child’s inner resources are enabled by the therapeutic alliance to bring about growth and change. Therapeutic play is child centred, in which the play is the primary medium and speech is the secondary medium’. (British Association of Play Therapists) 

We can facilitate life story work with young people which provides the opportunity for children and young people to discover their own individual story, learn ways of understanding themselves and to make a connection between the past, present and future. Life Story can address, identity and self-esteem issues.

Adults

Therapeutic Services provides a range of services for those working with or caring for children and young people.

Clinical Supervision is a creative action approach to supervision, which is humanistic and psychodynamic in orientation with the primary emphasis on the creative process, using within the supervision context embodiment, projective methods, creative visualisation, enactment and other practical methods to highlight process, practice and address areas of concern.

Filial Coaching and Mentoring (working with the adults) has been demonstrated through research and clinical experience to be an effective intervention for children and families experiencing a variety of social, emotional and behavioural difficulties.  This unique coaching and mentoring involves parents as the primary agent of change to support and even resolve child related problems and to encourage children’s healthy psychosocial development.  Filial Coaches and Mentors train and supervise parents to implement non directive play skills with their children, an approach that not only helps eliminate presenting problems but can also strengthen parent and family relationships.

Therapeutic Services provide a range of training that always receives high acclamation and supports child centred practice and the ‘child centred’ approach to working with children and young people is recommended as ‘best practice’ in current Government policy.

Our Training Includes

• Self Harm - this looks at and challenges common perceptions of self harm and working with self harm including assessing risks
• Sex and Relationship Education – this looks at the issues facing young people and how to work with young people and the law regarding sex and relationships education
• Introduction to Working therapeutically - this is an introduction to Therapeutic Services and working therapeutically this is an experiential course
• Communicating with Children and Young People - Level One -this will equip practitioners with the knowledge and skills to effectively communicate with children and young people using a child centred approach, again this is a creative experiential course
• Communicating with Children and Young People - Level Two -this course provides an opportunity for practitioners to experience therapeutic process using play therapy techniques.
• Life Story Work Training - this course will equip practitioners with the knowledge and skills to effectively carry out ‘Life Story’ Work with children and young people and it takes on a three point plan perspective to implementing Life Story Work.

Our Resources

Any individual therapeutic support with children and young people can take place in our playroom, which is specially designed and furnished with toys and equipment appropriate to the task.  Thought is given to the resources available to the child or adolescent, in order that they are appropriate to their developmental level and needs.  Play materials match the child's culture and race and the equipment offers opportunities for creative and symbolic play. Materials such as sand, water and clay are provided as they cannot be damaged and therefore can provide a safe outlet for confused and angry feelings.  As these materials can be restored, this can help a child learn that anger can be controlled and managed.
The child/young person is offered a safe and consistent environment together with a safe and consistent relationship with the therapeutic worker.  All feelings therefore are accepted and explored symbolically and/or explicitly, depending on how the child or young person is able to use therapy sessions.  Not all behaviour is acceptable and therefore the therapeutic worker will set firm and consistent limits.

The Team

Nickie Waddilove - Therapeutic Social Worker

“I have fifteen years experience of working with children and young people who have experienced abuse and/or trauma.
I am currently employed to lead the Therapeutic Services Team in Family Care Associates Limited, working with ‘looked after’ children and young people, providing individual therapeutic support to children and young people and support and guidance to residential and family placement staff and foster carers in their work with children , including Life Story Work.  For the last two years I have also worked within the Company's family placement team recruiting and assessing foster carers.  Additionally I have developed training programmes, incorporating a number of individual courses, broadly focusing on direct work with children.  These courses are regularly delivered internally and have been commissioned by external providers through the Company's Training Department.

Funded by Family Care Associates Limited, I have completed a Professional Development Diploma in Creative Therapy, a BA Hons in Social Work and a Diploma in Creative Supervision and provide Clinical Supervision to Play Therapists, Art Therapists, Social Workers and Family Support Workers.

I have also facilitated and led a successful visual presentation and workshops on communicating therapeutically with children and young people at two Regional Conferences entitled ‘Using a Therapeutic Approach with Children and Young People'.
I am an extremely committed, highly motivated professional and enjoy a challenge.  I particularly enjoy and am passionate about working therapeutically with children and motivating others to do so - this is my drive for my continued professional development”.

Kerry Robertson - Accredited Play Therapist/Filial-Coach

“I am an accredited Play Therapist and have been employed by Family Care Associates Limited since 2004 working with children and young people who have experienced various emotional and behavioural disorders.

Funded by Family Care Associates Limited I have completed my Certificate in Play Therapy Diploma.  I have also  trained to become a Filial Coach/Mentor supporting and engaging parents/carers as an agent of change to improve their children’s emotional state and behaviour and to strengthen the parent-child relationship using non-directive play techniques.

I provide both “in-house” and external training for a number of different courses concerned with providing the adult carers with the appropriate and necessary tools to support children and young people through potentially difficult times. I am currently completing my MA in Practice Based Play Therapy”.

Kelly McGowan - Therapeutic Play Specialist/Life Story Coach   

“I have been employed with Family Care Associates since 2003.  Initially I worked within a therapeutic care home for children who have suffered abuse and/or trauma with multiple placement breakdowns.  During my time in this setting I gained my NVQ 3 in Caring for Children and Young People and my A1 Assessor’s Award and obtained a position as Senior Residential Childcare Worker.

My inclination to working with children therapeutically in a more specialist role drew me towards the Company's Therapeutic Services and I became involved in and took on the role as Life Story Mentor and Trainer.  In 2007 I started my training with Play Therapy U.K (P.T.U.K) and completed the certificate and I am currently completing my Diploma in Play Therapy.  I have experience of working within a variety of settings including residential units and schools and I am also heavily involved in providing training to residential workers, foster carers and social workers on working therapeutically with children and young people.  I have also facilitated and led successful workshops on Life Story Work at two Regional Conferences entitled ‘Using a Therapeutic Approach with Children and Young People”.