Empowering teachers and pupils for a brighter future.
Supporting education and wellbeing.
School Leadership Support
If you are looking for supervision for leadership teams, safeguarding and pastoral staff, services of an external adviser for Headteacher appraisals, school project support, leadership support and staff training you are in the right place - contact me for more information.
I work face to face in many areas of Surrey, Sussex and Kent and virtually wherever I can be of help.
The Talking Drawer brings together a number of services for schools and individuals that are based on the principle that talking about issues we often lock away in a drawer (believing we’ll deal with them later) is usually not the best course of action for a positive future! Sometimes we are too busy to reflect on these things and other times they are simply too difficult to unpack alone.
Many children who have suffered trauma cannot identify or express how they feel without support through tailor-made intervention. I offer support to pupils, individually or in groups, to overcome emotional barriers to learning and to catch up on early reading, writing and maths skills.
Supporting pupils with emotional needs
Children struggling with emotional regulation may find this negatively impacts their behaviour, emotional development or social skills. I offer therapeutic interventions via targeted specialist support where the emotional wellbeing of the child is the main objective. This support may be in the form of Sand Play, therapeutic play activities and Drawing & Talking. Drawing & Talking is a tier 1/2 therapeutic intervention based on play therapy ideology. Through the combination of drawing and talking, the different sides of the brain can interact with each other and over time, the child can create a symbolic resolution that heals old wounds and allows the child to move on.
Supervision for school leaders and pastoral teams
Demands on education professionals - workload, school culture, high-stakes accountability practices, change, pupil behaviour, lack of resources - all take an emotional toll on school leadership, teachers and pastoral teams. School staff are regularly the first port of call for advice when families and pupils experience trauma of some kind. I offer sector specific supervision for schools. Reflective supervision recognises that leading schools and teaching is demanding work and that school staff are valuable and need to be looked after - it is considered helpful in improving practice, enhancing wellbeing and reducing the likelihood of burnout and stress. The purpose of supervision is to provide a safe and confidential space for staff to reflect on and discuss their work and their personal and professional responses to their work.
Supporting pupils with learning needs
Children who struggle to acquire the prerequisite skills or building blocks for Reading, Writing and Maths often find they are quickly left behind their peers. The ability to read confidently and independently will enable a child to tackle many classroom activities by themselves - it helps them access the learning appropriate for their age group and lead to positive self-confidence and resilience as a learner. I offer tailor-made interventions for individuals or small groups to help pupils catch up with their classmates and to relieve the stress these children may feel from the gap between their attainment and that of their classmates.
Supporting adults in care homes
As adults our relationship with our parents changes over time. If we are fortunate, we may feel very close to our parents and share with them many happy memories of events throughout our lives. In many cultures, aging parents stay with younger generations in the family home but in many western cultures, this of course is not the case. As our parents age we may see them struggle with the physical effects or aging or those which will affect their memory and thinking. In such circumstances we may feel our parents are better cared for in residential homes. Both for the aging parents and their adult children, this change can significantly affect us emotionally. Drawing & Talking and therapeutic activities can help individuals process these changing emotions.