PlAY Interventions To develop behaviour and wellbeing skills
These sessions are most often for an individual child, but can also be planned for pairs or a small group.
SENDCos, Family Liaison Staff and Teachers most often request these sessions for:
Children struggling with aggressive and challenging behaviour outbursts
Children with high anxiety
Children with high impulsivity and difficulty concentrating or organising themselves
Children with low wellbeing, or low self esteem
Children experiencing a period of high stress or who have experienced trauma affecting their confidence, relationships and sense of safety at school
Children needing support to build positive relationships with an adult or with peers
Play sessions often reveal underlying challenges for the child which can include:
Difficulties with impulse control, with coping with excitement and frustration, with memory and sequencing, with co ordination and body awareness, with social communication skills, poor self image, poor language comprehension and listening skills, and with feeling calm and safe at school
Play is a universal language. It is fun, it is sensory and concrete which stimulates the lower brain where much of these difficulties stem from, it can follow the child's interests as well as their needs so is motivating, and provides a means in which a great deal of teaching can be carried out in a very low stress, positive way. Play can be structured in many different ways to help a child with:
Developing impulse control and attention skills
Developing emotional regulation
Coping with excitement and frustration
Coping with emotional stressors such as winning, losing and competition,
Developing physical coordination, body awareness, motor skills and sensory processing skills
Developing listening skills, language processing and processing speed
Developing relationships with a key adult at school for that key adult to be better able to calm and redirect the child in challenging moments
Experiencing calm, nurture and wellbeing
Self esteem
Meeting developmentally young needs that may no longer easily be age appropriately met in the classroom
These holistic play sessions draw on a range of strategies including Rhythmic Movement, Nurture Groups, Theraplay and Intensive Interaction, and are individually tailored to the child. They take place with a key member of staff who is able to help carry over the session into the classroom day to day
Play sessions are intended to be fun and a special time for the child and their adult to enjoy, which often helps an angry or anxious child feel valued and listened to, while at the same time practicing and stretching some of their core skills that support their functional coping in the classroom. I often work with schools using the Boxhall Profile to help identify key areas of need and to track progress. I most often work with a key teaching assistant for the child, but have also welcomed parents and carers to join sessions where parents and schools would like this.
It is important to note:
I am not a Theraplay Therapist and what I offer is not Theraplay. Theraplay is a specific and specialist form of intervention and can only be offered by a trained Theraplay Therapist, who has qualified as such with the Theraplay Institute. Theraplay is wholly focused on that specific specialism with a child and their parents.
I have the greatest respect for the Theraplay Institute's work and practice, and from training with them I am permitted to use some of the excellent strategies and techniques from their teaching to inform my work. However I draw from a broad range of different strategies and approaches to meet the specific needs of each individual child in the play sessions I offer, I look at and address the whole picture of the child's development in all areas, and I work in an educational therapy based way, working on supporting a child's success in school.
SENDCos, Family Liaison Staff and Teachers most often request these sessions for:
Children struggling with aggressive and challenging behaviour outbursts
Children with high anxiety
Children with high impulsivity and difficulty concentrating or organising themselves
Children with low wellbeing, or low self esteem
Children experiencing a period of high stress or who have experienced trauma affecting their confidence, relationships and sense of safety at school
Children needing support to build positive relationships with an adult or with peers
Play sessions often reveal underlying challenges for the child which can include:
Difficulties with impulse control, with coping with excitement and frustration, with memory and sequencing, with co ordination and body awareness, with social communication skills, poor self image, poor language comprehension and listening skills, and with feeling calm and safe at school
Play is a universal language. It is fun, it is sensory and concrete which stimulates the lower brain where much of these difficulties stem from, it can follow the child's interests as well as their needs so is motivating, and provides a means in which a great deal of teaching can be carried out in a very low stress, positive way. Play can be structured in many different ways to help a child with:
Developing impulse control and attention skills
Developing emotional regulation
Coping with excitement and frustration
Coping with emotional stressors such as winning, losing and competition,
Developing physical coordination, body awareness, motor skills and sensory processing skills
Developing listening skills, language processing and processing speed
Developing relationships with a key adult at school for that key adult to be better able to calm and redirect the child in challenging moments
Experiencing calm, nurture and wellbeing
Self esteem
Meeting developmentally young needs that may no longer easily be age appropriately met in the classroom
These holistic play sessions draw on a range of strategies including Rhythmic Movement, Nurture Groups, Theraplay and Intensive Interaction, and are individually tailored to the child. They take place with a key member of staff who is able to help carry over the session into the classroom day to day
Play sessions are intended to be fun and a special time for the child and their adult to enjoy, which often helps an angry or anxious child feel valued and listened to, while at the same time practicing and stretching some of their core skills that support their functional coping in the classroom. I often work with schools using the Boxhall Profile to help identify key areas of need and to track progress. I most often work with a key teaching assistant for the child, but have also welcomed parents and carers to join sessions where parents and schools would like this.
It is important to note:
I am not a Theraplay Therapist and what I offer is not Theraplay. Theraplay is a specific and specialist form of intervention and can only be offered by a trained Theraplay Therapist, who has qualified as such with the Theraplay Institute. Theraplay is wholly focused on that specific specialism with a child and their parents.
I have the greatest respect for the Theraplay Institute's work and practice, and from training with them I am permitted to use some of the excellent strategies and techniques from their teaching to inform my work. However I draw from a broad range of different strategies and approaches to meet the specific needs of each individual child in the play sessions I offer, I look at and address the whole picture of the child's development in all areas, and I work in an educational therapy based way, working on supporting a child's success in school.
