Top Tips for Teachers to Help Students with Anxiety Anxiety disorders are one of the most common and growing mental health problems amongst children. It is likely that most classes will have at least one child suffering with anxiety. Schools can be an anxiety provoking environment due to overstimulation and pressures around learning and friendships.  Our therapists have put together their top tips for opening-up conversations about anxiety and supporting children who may be suffering. How to Help a Student Understand & Manage Anxiety in the Classroom   Help children to realise that anxiety is normal, and sometimes even helpful

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– Karen Raingold is a HCPC registered Art Therapist.  The end of the academic year can bring lots of change and excitement as children prepare for end of term performances, sports days and trips as well as looking forward to the next chapter of their schooling. However, all of this can be deeply unsettling for children, especially the most vulnerable who rely on school as a place of routine and familiarity. Add to this the often painful experience of saying goodbye which may bring up feelings associated with other losses that they have experienced, and you have a recipe for

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If there is one way to sum up external events at the start of this academic year, it has to be “turbulent”. Continued recovery from Covid19 followed by the death of Queen Elizabeth II on home shores, the on-going War in Ukraine and the economic and political crisis, all contribute to a sense of change and uncertainty. Schools continue to be a haven of safety and consistency for many pupils. Staff, at all stages, can help to address children’s concerns around what they are hearing and absorbing from the adults around them. The stress of current times comes down to

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Brazilian psychologist and psychotherapist, Flavio Cordeiro shares his thoughts after watching the film: Joker… I watched Joker this weekend. It had been a long time since I came out of such a troubled movie. I believe this is one of the main functions of art: to disturb, to wake us up. The mechanism of the nightmares is more or less the same. Nightmares wake us up with an issue that needs to be addressed, or it will continue to haunt us all night long. Art, sometimes with beauty and emotion, bothers us for the same reason: it presents us with an

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Tereza Nogueira, Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist and senior supervisor for ‘Child in Time’, writes to us from Kathmandu, Nepal where she’s returned as a volunteer with Unity in Health http://unityinhealth.org. After volunteering for the first time this year (see previous blog posts), I have come back to Nepal earlier that I ever thought I would.It is amazing how perspectives can change as we get used to things. I arrived in Kathmandu by myself last Saturday. I was picked up from the airport by the Unity in Health country representative who is one of the kindest people I’ve met here in Nepal.As

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Early support in schools can be a real game-changer for ‘disruptive’ children. Child Psychotherapist Adriana Buzetto shares her story of therapeutic work with a nine year old boy in the school setting. (Names and identifying details have been changed to maintain confidentiality) I’d like to share the story of Zain, a 9 year-old boy who was referred to therapy because of his disruptive behaviour at school. To me this is a beautiful and quite straight-forward example of how early support can really be a game changer.  Zain was referred to therapy because he was behind academically and didn’t manage friendships well.

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Adriana Buzetto, child and adolescent psychotherapist went to Woolmore School in Tower Hamlets to work creatively with a group of parents. Watch this short video to find out about their experience…

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A present from the universe… I always thought about going to Nepal as an opportunity to see Mount Everest. I kept asking people if we would have time in our schedule to go and see it. To my disappointment, I was told it was 1 hr away from Kathmandu and even if we went it would not be guaranteed a siting, due to clouds and mist.  I felt something would be forever missed if I didn’t catch a glimpse of this great mountain and when it was confirmed that I wouldn’t see it this time, I felt my wish to

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My last day in Nepal… I could not believe we’d reached the end of twenty four, intense days in Nepal. When I first arrived, this felt impossible to achieve. The initial shock of how different Nepal was for me had vanished. All felt natural and normal as I had adjusted to the place. At 6:30 in the morning when I was half asleep, suddenly the bed started to shake. I realised it was an earthquake and I was surprised to discover that I wasn’t feeling scared. For a moment it was exciting, like being in a funfair. Difficult to describe

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At 6:30am we arrived at the University for my first lecture to the counselling students of the University of Kathmandu. Their study day is from 6:30 to 9:30 as they all rush to work afterwards which left me with a strong feeling of how much we take for granted over here.  Having been away to the mountains, it was nice to see their faces again and they felt strangely familiar, as if I had known them for a long time.   I lectured on working with special needs children and teenagers and they all seemed eager to learn what I was

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