Welcome to
Flourishing Play
Therapy
for Herefordshire
Mission
My mission is to support and improve the mental health of as many children as I can by providing them with certified Play Therapy, following the principles of Axline.
​
My mission focuses on the needs of children. Children’s voices must be heard and their dignity and human rights upheld. Within school, the curriculum must embed within it an understanding of emotional well being, the principles of good mental health and the certainty of therapeutic help for those children who need it. I want to ensure that any individual who works therapeutically with children must be registered through an independent government-approved agency such as the Professional Authority’s Accredited Register programme or the Health and Care Professions Council. Children are currently insufficiently protected because too many unqualified and unsupervised people are practising.
If children's mental health is important to you too, please sign up to the Children's Mental Health Charter:
​
https://childmentalhealthcharter.com/supporters
​
Principles of Play Therapy
-
The therapeutic relationship must be engaging and inviting, providing warmth and rapport at the earliest possible moment.
-
The child must be unconditionally accepted by the therapist.
-
The therapeutic environment must be nonjudgmental in order for the child to feel uninhibited in the expression of emotions, feelings, and behaviours.
-
The therapist must be attentive and cognisant of the child’s behaviours in order to provide reflective behaviours back to the child so that he or she may develop self-awareness.
-
The therapist relies on the child’s ability to find solutions, when available, to his or her own problems and understands that the child is solely responsible for the transformational choices he or she makes or does not make.
-
The therapist acts as the shadow, allowing the child to lead the therapeutic journey through dialogue and actions.
-
The therapist recognises that the procedure is one that is steady and should progress at its own pace, not a pace set by the therapist.
-
The only limitations and boundaries that are set are ones that ensure the therapeutic process stay genuine and that the child remains in the realm of reality, aware of his or her purpose and role in the therapy.
