Childhood trauma and the Brain
We offer counselling for children (aged 5 and above) and adolescents. Our child counsellor has worked in an education setting for many years in addition to being a qualified counsellor. Counselling offers children and young people a safe space to express their thoughts and feelings in a safe environment. It can help them to talk about problems and share worries, as well as looking at ways to build up self-confidence.
It can be difficult for children/young people to talk completely openly to family members and sharing things with someone outside of their immediate support network can help. Working things through with someone else often leads to this being shared with the family. Talking to a counsellor can enable a child/young person to feel validated, build trust and feel safe while trying to make sense of the world around them. Our child counsellor will also offer the options of exploring what’s going on for them using creative materials, toys, puppets. Session length will be flexible from 30 to 45 minutes.
The first appointment for child counselling will normally involve the parent/guardian and the child talking. This will give the parent and child the opportunity to decide if they want to have counselling and look at the difficulties. Parents are asked to stay in the clinic building while sessions are taking place and can be asked to come back into a session at the end if the child/young person feels this could help. Often working with children and young people is about learning new coping skills and how to communicate better so it can help to if a parent/guardian is aware of how to encourage their child to practice skills and provide opportunities for things to be tried out.
In terms of sharing information and confidentiality, our approach varies according to the age of each young person as the law changes when the child becomes more able to make their own choices about health care. This is called competence. The link below explains more about competence in relation to accessing health care.
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Age and Capacity The law distinguishes between young people aged 16 to 17 years and children under 16 in respect of the capacity to consent. Young people aged 16 to 17 – young people aged 16 and over in England are presumed in law to have the
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There are also times when it can be helpful for information to be shared with the child/young person’s GP/other health provider, or school. Unless there are concerns about safeguarding and risk, this will only be done with the parent/carer and child’s consent. Our over-riding focus in offering therapy is that everything is in the best interests of the child/young person.
https://www.cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk/documents/social-care-and-health/children/team-around-the-family/young-people-and-consent-guidance-notes-130219.pdf
