Therapeutic Services

Our bespoke, creative therapeutic services can make all the difference to organisations working with children, young people and families.

The foundation of our therapeutic services is based on a variety of research-based theoretical perspectives. However, it is the relationship that we believe holds the key to positive and healthy change;

"A brain, like a neuron is not much use on its own. Our brains need other brains, or as we more often put it, people need people…. Our brains are linked together and grow together in relationship with each other" (Perry, School of Life)

By understanding how we work, we develop empathy and a curiosity in how others work. This vital relational process is how children understand how to regulate their own behaviour, how to relate with their teachers and peers and leads to better learning outcomes.

Our skilled, experienced therapists use a range of relational skills to sensitively support children with their emotional wellbeing, based on:

A Safe and Supportive Environment

Therapists create a safe and confidential space where children and young people can express their thoughts, feelings, and concerns without fear of judgment. Many children in care settings can find therapy unsettling initially and all therapists use play and creative arts to develop a trusting working alliance.

Collaborative Processes

Therapy is a partnership between the therapist and the child/young person. It is not about giving advice or solutions, but rather helping individuals explore their feelings, thoughts, and experiences in a constructive and supportive way.

Regular Sessions

Therapy typically involves regular sessions, usually once a week, where children and therapists meet. Consistency in attendance is important for the effectiveness of therapy. All sessions tend to be play- focussed.

Enabling Healing and Growth

The aim of therapy at CF is to promote healing and growth. It is essential that children and young people in our residential care settings can develop healthy relational skills. At CF, it's about helping individuals work through past traumas, understand patterns of behaviour, develop healthier ways of thinking and interacting.

Referrals are taken on a case-by-case basis directly from local authorities and education settings.

Creative therapeutic services for mainstream and specialist schools.

We design and deliver bespoke, creative packages that help children adapt their challenging behaviour.

We work with a range of challenges our children today face, including:

Those who struggle to remain in class

Those who present with aggressive behaviour

Those who are hard to reach and cannot engage in mainstream lessons

Those who have experienced sexual abuse

Those who have sexually harmed others

We can also provide a 6-week programme for working with children and young people at risk of emotional school-based avoidance.

Individual therapy

We provide one-to-one individual therapy to children in their school setting. Our therapists offer a range of ways of working with children including play, creative arts and CBT-type tools to provide a supportive environment to help them articulate their own emotional needs.

Each need and relationship is unique, and so therapy can be offered over both the short and long term.

Group therapy sessions or group emotional regulation sessions

We can provide group therapy sessions, which can be a powerful way to help children and young people develop key skills in regulatory behaviours, promoting emotional literacy and understanding consequences to behaviour.

These powerful sessions are facilitated by experienced and qualified counsellors.

Theoretical perspectives are drawn from the world of psychotherapy, educational psychology, and pedagogical thinking. The perceived ‘safety’ of the group for young people often enables them the resilience to think about their experiences and how this makes them feel.

Group sessions can lead to:

Developing an awareness of child’s emotions

Recognising emotion as an opportunity for teaching and relationship building

Listening empathetically and validating children’s emotions

Helping the child verbally label emotions

Setting limits whilst helping the child problem-solve

Clinical therapeutic services for professionals working with children and young people.

We can provide training, team workshops and regular clinical supervision for professionals working with children and young people.

We can provide training, team workshops and regular clinical supervision for professionals working with children and young people. This can help professionals understand what systemic issues are impacting on a child’s behaviour and emotional wellbeing. Discussing behaviours and responses is a powerful tool to help professionals develop resilience when working with challenging and oppositional behaviours.

This can help professionals understand what systemic issues are impacting on a child’s behaviour and emotional wellbeing. Discussing behaviours and responses is a powerful tool to help professionals develop resilience when working with challenging and oppositional behaviours.

Without this kind of support, professionals may experience ‘compassion fatigue’, despite efforts to achieve the very best outcomes for children and can result in support staff being worn down by the behaviours around them.

We regularly work with local authorities, providing a range of bespoke and creative services to suit their needs.

This can be in response to working with children displaying unpredictable or challenging behaviours.

Our therapeutic lead will consider a young person’s behaviour and how to reach them effectively, even in the most difficult situations.

Our Offering

Workshops to teams of professionals

Offering the vital process of containment, understanding other’s behaviours, and designing personalised interventions to help staff work effectively.

Our Offering

Individual clinical supervision

Thoughtful individual sessions with professionals to assist with working through situations and understanding the dynamics of a difficult behaviour.

Therapeutic support for CF Children’s Homes

A therapeutic approach sits at the heart of our children’s homes. Our staff are trained in how to work with this approach, and every child is assessed from the start of their time in our care, with a view to providing the best possible therapeutic interventions to support positive outcomes.

Therapy needs assessments

These are undertaken with each child/young person within the first three months of being placed with CF Social Work.

CF residential care workers play a vital role in creating a nurturing and supportive environment for the children and young people in our care. The therapy needs assessment enables our experienced residential staff team to understand and work in a trauma-informed and child-centred way.

Individual Therapy Services

Our assessments inform the individual therapy we can deliver to our children in residential settings. We have access to a range of therapeutic interventions that support children to manage anxiety, improve communication skills, process trauma, build self-esteem, and develop coping strategies. We believe an integrative approach utilising psychodynamic and cognitive approaches works effectively with children and young people who present challenging behaviours and find relationships difficult.

Monthly group and individual clinical supervision

Children in care need the stability and consistency of professional and exceptionally well- trained staff to learn how to relate in a healthy way. Working with a trained therapist can contribute significantly to the overall wellbeing and emotional development of the children and young people we support. Therapeutic oversight is provided to all aspects of our work to ensure that our stakeholders understand the benefit of compassionate, empathic, attachment-informed practice.

Training on clinical issues relating to children and young people in care

PACE and trauma-informed training is delivered to our CF residential care staff. Using examples of practice from work with our young people, we embed the values of understanding and supporting them to relate in a healthy manner, helping them to articulate their needs without relying on challenging behaviour. Our staff are trained to understand their work through a ‘therapeutic lens,’ embedding their understanding in the emotional aspect in their interactions with the children and young people in their care.

Therapeutic oversight of practice

The Lead practitioner works with the management team of each residential unit to add impact to reporting functions. This means our stakeholders can see the impact on CF practice that upholds therapeutic value helping our children and young people to practice their healthy relational skills.

Supporting CF Group Social Work Services

As a qualified and experienced social worker, the therapeutic lead supports the social work team with any assessment that requires a therapeutic perspective. The lead practitioner can be commissioned to deliver consultation and assessments with complex cases.

Trained in assessing and providing therapy in sexually harmful behaviour cases, the lead practitioner can offer their experience to complex cases.

CF Therapeutic Services