School Therapist
There are a number of therapeutic interventions available at Edge Grove that sit outside of the School curriculum and that are delivered by Art and Play Therapist, Claire Pearson.
Having spent over 20 years in teaching, with seven years as Head of Learning Support and Pastoral Care, Claire decided to focus on her passion – children and young people’s well-being.
Claire supports our pupils through the following:
- Therapeutic Story Writing: this is a group intervention for the ages 7 – 12 years. It supports children to process their feelings through the metaphor of the story whilst supporting their emotional literacy, growing literacy confidence and developing creative writing skills;
- Drawing and Talking: this can be a 1:1 or directed group therapeutic intervention from Reception upwards. It supports the young person to process their feelings through the symbolism of their picture. 1:1 the sessions last half an hour for 12 weeks and group work lasts 30-45 minutes for 6 – 8 weeks;
- Sand Play: this is a 1:1 therapeutic intervention from Reception upwards where the young person can process their feelings through the symbolism of the play. The sessions last half an hour for 12 weeks;
- Feelings Club: this is a group intervention of up to six young people from Reception upwards. The sessions last 30 – 45 minutes each (dependent on the age of the young people) for 6 – 8 weeks and focus on naming, expressing and discussing comfortable and uncomfortable feelings to allow them to process how feelings impact themselves and others and to recognise that others have those feelings too and what they can do with those feelings;
- Social Communication Skills: working with children with social communication difficulties to help them develop skills to navigate effective social communication in the classroom and playground;
- Emotional Regulation Skills: working with children to help them learn to regulate their emotions more effectively through labelling emotions, recognising the physiological affects their body experiences when they are feeling these emotions and then understanding what they need and how to regulate those emotions confidently.
