Schools
Services for Schools
During the past 7 years Nikki McAuslan, the founder of butterfly, has provided a unique and special therapeutic service to nearly 30 primary, secondary and special schools in Nottinghamshire. Butterfly is now being brought to Bristol, offering a range of services that are designed to aid the emotional, psychological, social and behavioural aspects of the children and young people in your school.
The therapists at butterfly use a variety of creative (play, art, drama) and verbal methods to enable children and young people to cope with distressing events in their lives; to manage and change undesirable behaviours or to understand themselves and their situation better. All therapists at butterfly are qualified to post graduate level, and there are also some placement therapists.
Whilst all of the services are confidential, where possible we like to involve relevant staff and carers in order to provide a rounded and complete service.
Butterfly is a member of the Counselling Children and Young People division of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy and adheres to the BACP’s code of ethics and guidelines.
What can butterfly offer?
Butterfly offers a range of services, including:
- Individual therapy for children and young people
- Group workshops
- Group therapy
- Family therapy
- Support, guidance and therapeutic sessions for parents and carers
- Staff workshops and training
- Staff support and strategy offering
- Peer listening service
Most schools use a combination of services to suit the needs of their children and young people, for example individual and family therapy in the morning and workshops in the afternoon. Some schools may just have one child who they believe will benefit from therapy and will therefore only require butterfly’s services for an hour a week.
Workshops for children and young people
The philosophy of butterfly is to create workshops to suit the individual needs of the school, meaning that if there is a specific area within which you would like a workshop we would be able to create this tailored to your needs and those of your students. Workshops usually last between one and three terms depending on the desired outcome and design of the workshop.
Previous workshops include:
- Anger Management
- Emotional Management (where the child is taught how to understand and control all of their emotions and which emotions are appropriate in different settings)
- On Becoming An Adult - what this means physically, emotionally, spiritually and sexually
- Self Esteem and Confidence Building
- What Relationships Mean and Expectations of Them - with peers, staff, families and romantic relationships
- What It Means To Be Me - allowing children to be secure within their identity and who they are
- Being Appropriate - teaching children the appropriateness of their words and actions in different settings
- Changes within school - merging with other schools, school closure, successfully moving from key stage 2 to 3
Staff Workshops and Insets
The workshops and Insets are partly delivered experientially, and are part theory based.
- Essential Counselling Skills
The teaching of counselling skills and techniques specifically designed to aid staff in supporting children and young people who are experiencing emotional distress or have certain needs in relation to their behaviour.
- Attachment Styles and Resulting Classroom Impact
A look into children’s style of attachment; where this comes from; how and why children behave and respond to their peers and adults due to their attachment style; a teacher’s role in working with insecurely attached children effectively, and helping them to reassess their patterns of attachment.
- Specifically Special Children
Though ALL children are special, these workshops look at children with specific emotional, behavioural, or social needs. It includes an overview of prevalent childhood disorders and difficulties (for example ADHD, childhood depression and anxiety, Asperger’s syndrome, self harm, isolated children, demanding children, asylum seeker and refugee children) and offers suggestions and strategies of how staff can work with these children and meet their needs.
Peer Listening Service
This is a hugely successful project where a cohort of students are taught essential counselling skills and problem solving skills which they then use to help other students who are experiencing difficulties that they feel unable to talk to staff about, or would prefer the help of their peers. This service has an emphasis on bullying, exam stress and peer relationships. All of the peer listeners receive rigorous training and ongoing supervision.
Staff Support and Strategy Offering
This service has proved to be very useful with children who need specialist support but are unavailable for therapy. The therapist gets a comprehensive overview of the child’s difficulties from the relevant staff member and is able to understand this from a psychotherapeutic aspect and offer ways in which that child may be supported within the school system.
Individual Therapy for Children and Young People
Most children who benefit from this service will receive a 45 minute session with their therapist each week. The therapist will use a variety of creative (art, play, drama) and talking methods to help the child in their exploration and healing process. This form of therapy is designed to enable children and young people to cope with distressing events in their lives; to manage and change undesirable behaviours or to understand themselves and their situation better. The school is asked to provide a secure and private room for therapy and to receive parental consent if the child is under 13 years. The therapist will bring their own equipment.