Welcome to Coastal Arts & Play Therapy
"Enter into children's play and you will find the place where their minds, hearts, and souls meet."
Virginia Axline
What is important to us?
Our Therapy Space
Our Treatment Focus
Our Treatment Focus
Our experience enables us to offer child centered play therapy, that is non-directive and unobtrusive.
We offer sessions to children between 2 and 12 years of age that may struggle with grief, loss, trauma, school readiness, anxiety, ADHD, ASD, family issues, medical concerns, learning and developmental delays.
Our Treatment Focus
Our Treatment Focus
Our Treatment Focus
Our focus is to help children heal, grow, regulate their emotions and become aware of their inner strengths. We achieve this by providing a safe space, where the child feels seen and heard. We provide unconditional positive regard for the child and what they bring to the therapeutic space.
Our Promise
Our Treatment Focus
Our Promise
We promise to be there every step of your child's journey. Our goal is to help the child heal and grow through their struggles, so they can be their best selves.
We build a therapeutic relationship with the child where they feel safe, there is trust, empathy, understanding and acceptance.
What is PLay Therapy?
"Toys are children’s words and play is their language.”
Gary Landreth
Play therapy creates a safe place for children to express their feelings and thoughts. It creates a relationship of trust between the child and the play therapist. It makes way for the development of self-esteem and the coping ability of the children.
A trained therapist uses play therapy to observe and gain insights into a child’s problems and then helps the child explore emotions and deal with unresolved trauma. Children learn new coping mechanisms, how to regulate their emotions, express what they’re feeling, lower anxiety and develop empathy for others. Play therapy helps build social skills, better family relationships, problem solve and help children take more responsibility for their own behaviours.
Play Therapy is designed for children aged between 2 and 12 years old. It allows children to work through their difficulties in a non-directive approach that allows for choices to be made about what they play with and how they play. There are four basic stages of play referred to as Exploratory, Aggressive, Regressive and Mastery.
Play Therapy enables the child the space to be themselves without judgement or direction. During the sessions they can be their best self and eventually they can take that best self out into the world.
All About the therapist
I am a qualified Play Therapist and a qualified Primary School Teacher with a specialisation in the early years. Working with children is my happy place, knowing that I am supporting them on their journey. I am committed to ongoing professional development and am studying a Bachelor of Arts Therapy (currently at associate degree level). I am passionate about the expressive arts, particularly play therapy and sand tray therapy. I believe it is important to reflect on my practice so I undertake regular supervision to ensure best practice for myself and my clients.
In the therapy room, I am committed to holding space for the client providing them with unconditional positive regard while they use play as their words to express what they are experiencing. I believe in the uniqueness of each child, have a person-centred approach to my therapy and believe deeply in the power of play to help the healing process. Working collaboratively with children and their caregivers is very important to me. I have a caring, thoughtful, creative and fun approach to working with children empowering them to be their best selves.
Qualifications
Certificate in Clinical Play Therapy Studies
Associate Degree of Arts Therapy
Bachelor of Arts Therapy (Qualifying in 2024)
Bachelor of Education – Primary
Play Therapy is based upon the fact that play is the child's natural medium of self-expression. It is an opportunity which is given to the child to 'play out' their feelings and problems just as, in certain types of adult therapy, an individual 'talks out' their difficulties.
Virginia Axline
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