Birdhouse Therapies offers a personalised service tailored to the individual requirements of the school.
Therapeutic group work is offered for up to 4 clients at a time over a period of 10 weeks. The focus of the groups can be specifically designed for the children attending and can be based around self-esteem, emotional resilience, bereavement, trauma and understanding anger.
Birdhouse therapies also offers Adventure Stories, a therapeutic approach which uses the metaphor of story to enable children to share and resolve feelings that may be unbearable, suppressed or acted out.
Birdhouse Therapies is certified to deliver the Mindfulness in Schools Paws b curriculum which comprises six, one hour, or twelve 30 minute mindfulness sessions as part of the PHSE curriculum for years 4-6.
Birdhouse Therapies provides a whole school approach which includes counselling support for the staff team and Inset training days on ‘The Invisible Classroom’, ‘Developing an Emotionally Healthy School’ and ‘Psychological Perspectives on Behaviour’ and ‘Managing Anxiety in the Classroom’.
Child-Parent Relationship Therapy (CPRT) is a ten session Filial Therapy Model for teaching parents basic child-centred play therapy skills to enhance their relationship with their children.
Requirements
A quiet, private room is required with a table and chairs and adequate space in which to play. It is useful to have a sink, or to have access to a sink nearby, for cleaning up after messy play.
Referral Criteria
I will ask that a referral form and a Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) or Boxall Profile be completed for each child, prior to meeting the child. This enables me to have some background information on the child, what the current difficulties and concerns are and the hopes and expectations of the therapy.
I will arrange a meeting with the child’s parent/carer during which I will ask about the family history, their experience of the child’s strengths and difficulties, complete a parental SDQ and obtain parental consent.
For each child a minimum of twelve sessions of therapy will be offered.
Fees
£60 per individual session
£75 for group work
Half Day Rate at your site: £125 (2 individual sessions or 1 individual and 1 group session)
Full Day Rate at your site: £250 (4 individual sessions or a combination of indiviual and group sessions)
Fees for CPRT, Paws b, whole school counselling and Inset Days are available on request.
Outcome data
The effectiveness of the therapeutic intervention is assessed using both measures of emotional and social wellbeing and behaviour as well as academic progress and attainment.
Measures of Emotional and Social Wellbeing and Behaviour:
- Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ)
- Hopes and Expectations Questionnaire
Measures of Academic Progress:
- National Curriculum Scores
- School Attendance
Sample of School SDQ Data: March 2014-March 2015
Practice based evidence on the effectiveness of therapeutic play has shown that 70% of children referred for therapeutic play or creative therapy show an improvement.
The above data from a Primary school in Kent for which outcome data was available for five children referred for therapeutic play showed improvement in all the children (a lower post-therapy SDQ score indicating improvement). The average number of sessions for which a child received therapeutic play was fifteen.
