Looking for support with your child’s mental health?
My name is Kate and I am a qualified child therapist, specialising in play.
Like adults, children experience ups and downs that can lead to strong emotions or challenging behaviours. Play therapy helps them make sense of their experiences, understand their feelings, and build self-esteem and resilience.
I offer children and young people (ages 4–13) a safe, confidential space to explore their thoughts and feelings in a dedicated playroom, while working with the whole family to support better relationships at home. My practice is underpinned by regular supervision, ensuring safe, ethical, and effective support.
What Is Play Therapy?
Play is a child’s natural way to process their experiences, emotions and feelings.
Talking about their emotions can be hard for some children as their brains have not fully developed. Play can be their language, it provides a natural release of the hormones needed to express emotions and learn key skills to manage harder feelings.
A play therapy room is like a treasure trove for children, filled with art materials, dress up clothes, clay, sand tray, messy play, music and a therapist that is led by their choices and there to hold their space.
The therapy room is a confidential space where the child can lead. They may choose to use puppets to act out a role play, use symbols as they build worlds in the sand tray, or get rid of their frustration with an array of musical instruments.
What To Expect From Play Therapy
-
Initial Meeting
The first step is to meet and learn more about your child. In this meeting we will assess if Play Therapy will be a suitable intervention for your child.
This will allow me to understand more about their background, challenges at home/school, and support structure. We will also put together some objectives that we hope the therapy will support with.
-
Minimum Of 12 Sessions
The key to Play Therapy is the therapeutic relationship and for the child to learn to trust in this.
Therefore, I recommend a minimum of 12 sessions, 40 minutes every week, with a review meeting after 6 sessions.
Please note I work during term times only - many schools and education settings support your child accessing therapy during school hours and I can assist you with how to approach this.
-
Play Therapy Content
Each session is led by the child with the therapist there to support. The child will have access to a range of play materials including clay, paint, role play, music and puppets.
As the relationship develops, I may bring in more directive techniques to support the child to express themselves and enable them to understand themselves and their emotions better.
Each session is confidential unless there is a safeguarding concern.
-
Moving On
I will work closely with my supervisor throughout the sessions and part of this is chatting through when is the right time to bring the sessions to a close.
I will then make sure there is plenty of time to prepare for the end of therapy. I will put together an end report with further suggestions for future support if needed.
Contact Me
If you’re interested in working with me, complete the form with a few details or send an email below.
I’ll review your message and try and get back to you within 48 hours.