Newsletter: July 2024

Teaching, training, transforming! Alun added these three words underneath our logo some time ago. I love these three words, we are never too old or young to be taught, to undertake training, learn from our experiences and be transformed as part of the process!

This time last year developing a training organisation and therapeutic community was not even a twinkle in our minds!

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”  Lao Tzu

We cannot believe it has been eight months since we came together and developed the School of Play and Creative Therapies.

We have spent endless hours online talking and listening to each other, learning and developing new skills. We have travelled up and down the country, so we could work in each other’s presence, rather than just online! Seeing the wild cows and sheep roaming free in fields, and on the roads in Wales was an experience! We have seen some wonderful countryside during our working breaks, being out in nature has been rejuvenating and has inspired our creativity. The many slices of cake accompanying endless cups of tea has also been very naughty, but well deserved! Our families have been a vital part of our journey with the School of Play and Creative Therapies, they are our constant cheerleaders always routing for us! We certainly would not be where we are today without them!

We felt strongly that kindness should run through everything we do. We feel kindness is crucial to develop and maintain relationships and trust. Why would we not want kindness to flow through our organisation when we all come from a caring background! Kindness is part of our moral basis, our own personal ethical foundation for life, so why not our organisation.

Maya Angelou reminds us “it takes courage to be kind”.

We have always been passionate about learning and ensuring those we teach have a positive learning journey. Learning is wonderful, but it can also be challenging! As learners who come to training with previous knowledge and experience we can often feel disempowered, put into the position of being a novice, forgetting just how skilled we are! We hope we can help enlighten those who train with us to recognise their skills are often transferable, igniting the desire to learn new knowledge and skills to support the mental health of children, young people, parents and adults.

We feel passionately about bringing high quality courses to those working with children, young people, parents, adults working and supporting the mental health of their clients. It took us a long time to decide on the two accrediting organisations for our courses, we are so happy with the choices we made. We believe that having our courses rigorously assessed by independent assessors will  verify the quality of our courses and will provide confidence and assurance to those who attend our training.  The knowledge that the learning material is regularly updated ensures it does not get tired and out of date. We have big ambitions for projects we would like to achieve and accomplish.

We have been encouraged and humbled by you all, your suggestions, your enquiries and your feedback. We know we are on the right track and we will continue to be open to listening. This is our commitment to all who learn with the School of Play and Creative Therapies.

We have some exciting new developments under wraps and cannot wait to share these with you in coming months.