Newsletter: July 2025
This months top news
We are excited to announce we are working in partnership with Play Therapy Centre Dubai. Looking forward to working with Stella and Gemma to support children and young people through Relational Play and Creative Therapy.
We are delighted with the recent feedback received from students who have just finished 8 days of Creative Therapeutic Life Story training. See more about this course below and how it can elevate your practice.
“Excellent wealth of knowledge and expertise. The stories of past clients really helped to bring the work to reality. The resources and communication have been excellent. I feel that you have covered everything I could have hoped for. Thank you”
“Really great to have such knowledge and experience, especially real-world experience having fostered and adopted children as well as the therapy experience.”
We have had great fun with our inner child recently! During the month of August, we will be promoting playful ideas for the summer holidays on our social media platforms. We know the summer holidays can be a long time for parents to keep their children occupied. Please signpost parents, family or friends who have children to have a look and gain inspiration!
Coming soon...
Last chance to book! Web Therapy: Supporting families in Crisis
Unlock the Skills to Support Traumatised Children and Their Families
Therapists working with traumatised children face unique challenges that require specialist training. Web Therapy: Working with Traumatised Children and Their Families is a comprehensive course designed to equip you with a practical, trauma-informed framework. You’ll gain tools to navigate complex trauma, support caregivers, and collaborate with professionals, all within a structured, empowering system. Whether you’re new to this work or looking to deepen your expertise, this training will enhance your confidence and effectiveness to work with children in care, adopted, or under an SGO or in Kinship care. Join a growing network of professionals committed to transforming the lives of vulnerable children and those who care for them.
For more information: https://schoolofpact.com/courses/web-therapy/
When: 12/07/2025 – 13/07/2025
Location: Online
Accredited by: CPD Standards Office
L6 Diploma – Relational Play and Creative Therapy, Children and Young People.
Do you know someone who wants to become a play therapist? Relational Play and Creative Therapy offers innovative training in therapeutic play and creative practice for children and young people aged 4–18, extending to 25 for Care Leavers and those with Special Educational Needs. Empower lives through relational, creative therapy—start the journey today.
Taught over 2 years, commencing:
04/10/2025 Bristol.
28/03/2026 Bromley
Accredited by: CpCAB
For more information about this dynamic course visit: https://schoolofpact.com/level-6-diploma/
L6 Certificate, Relational Play and Creative Therapy, Young People
The Relational Play and Creative Therapy for Young People Qualification is designed to expand play therapists’ skills and confidence in working ethically with clients aged 11–25.
This course deepens your theoretical understanding while providing practical tools for safe, effective practice. You’ll explore key legal aspects such as consent, safeguarding, and risk assessment. Ideal for those supporting adolescents, Care Leavers, or young people with Special Educational Needs.
Full details of this qualification can be found at https://schoolofpact.com/courses/post-qualifying-relational-play-and-creative-therapy-for-young-people/
Accredited by CpCAB.
Dates: 25/10/2025 to 31/10/2025.
Quarterly tutorials: Dates and times will be agreed with the cohort
Location: In Person – Mercure Bristol North the Grange Hotel, Old Gloucester Road, Winterbourne, Bristol, BS36 1RP
Creative Therapeutic Life Story Work
Are you a therapist or a professional working within children’s residential care, looking to deepen your work with vulnerable children and young people? Creative Therapeutic Life Story Work is a powerful, trauma-informed approach that helps clients understand their past, process difficult experiences, and build a stronger sense of identity. This 8-day training equips you with practical, creative tools to work effectively with children who are adopted, in foster or kinship care, under SGOs, or displaced. Gain specialist skills that enhance your therapeutic practice, meet growing professional demands, and make a meaningful difference in young lives. Empower your clients—and your career—with this transformative and highly valued qualification.
Creative Therapeutic Life Story Work Qualification is Accredited by CpCAB.
Dates:
27/09/2025 – 28/09/2025
18/10/2025 – 19/10/2025
29/11/2025 – 30/11/2025
24/01/2026 – 25/01/2026
Quarterly tutorials: Dates and times will be agreed with the cohort
Location: Online
Accredited by CpCAB.
More details about this courses can be found at https://schoolofpact.com/courses/post-qualifying-creative-therapeutic-life-story-therapy/
L6 Certificate Relational Creative Arts Therapy for Adults
Looking to expand your qualifications? The Level 6 Certificate in Relational Creative Arts Therapy for Adults is an innovative programme designed to build on your existing experience, enabling you to work creatively and ethically with adults. This course explores client-centred talking therapy combined with creative arts like sand trays, clay, art, movement, and music to support clients with trauma, neurodiversity, and attachment difficulties. Drawing on influential theories from Rogers, Jung, Bowlby, and others, you’ll develop skills to strengthen the therapeutic alliance and help clients express emotions and gain insight through metaphor and symbolism. bypassing their inner critic and connecting more directly with their unconscious. You will experience a blend of experiential creative practice combined with theoretical learning to underpin your therapeutic counselling skills development. Relational Creative Arts Therapy holds the adult central to the entire therapeutic process.
Dates: 14/02/20256-21/02/2026, plus quarterly tutorials to be agreed with the cohort
Location: In Person Bedford
Cost: £1250.00 Payment options are available.
AutPlay Therapy is returning to the UK July 2026
AutPlay Therapy is a neurodiversity-affirming paradigm, play-based approach designed for neurodivergent children, particularly those with autism, ADHD, and sensory differences. Integrating play therapy and relational techniques, it supports emotional regulation, social connection, and sensory integration. AutPlay is adaptable across settings—including private practice, schools, and community services—and involves parents or carers as active partners in the process. Training in AutPlay equips professionals with practical tools to better understand and meet the unique needs of neurodivergent children and young people they support. It’s a highly effective model that fosters inclusion, strengthens relationships, and enhances therapeutic outcomes for neurodivergent young people.
Dates: 04/07/2026-05/07/2026
Venue: Live in Person and online: Compleat Angler. Marlow Bridge, Marlow, Buckinghamshire, SL7 1RG
Cost: £450.00
Something to ponder on...
Sitting in my garden I became mesmerised with two small finches flying in and out of the large Sambucus Nigra bush. Hopping from leave to leave, jumping into their nest carefully hidden. Flying off again, one following the other similar to a game of tag. There was something tender about watching the birds return to their nest. I found myself smiling as I watched them, inflight arching as they swooped down graceful and small within the gentle breeze.
I found my mind wandering to the gentle work of Relational Play Therapy. Children arrive in the room like birds from the sky gliding through the unseen winds as they gently land. Children do not always speak in the way adults expect, totally accepted by us as they are. They know how to play. Play is the language of childhood and in that play, they circle closer to what hurts, to what heals. The playroom becomes their nest, a safe and containing space not to retreat from life, but to return to week after week.
Like twigs gathered by the small finches one by one, the sessions offer safety built through repetition, imagination, freedom to be and express themselves as they need to. The therapist offers containment and a client centred approach, does not push or pry. We wait, like a quiet tree, letting the child come and go, letting the play speak. In time, the child may find words to share their experiences and what they’ve carried. The unconscious experience being gently processed, or not. Sometimes healing happens in the gesture of play, not the spoken word.
The Finch doesn’t ask whether its flight was efficient or its nest impressive. It becomes aware the garden has movement by means of a dog wandering around. It flies off, the nest alone, it soon returns, because it is in its nature to do so to sit with their eggs. The child in Relational Play Therapy does not aim to find healing, it happens without knowing. The child explores, returns week after week, tests the boundaries, repeats the process. It can take time! It is a privilege to witness. Like the miracle of the Finches caring for the small egg, therapy is sacred.
Like watching a bird land softly among familiar branches of the Sambucus Nigra bush, the therapist witnesses something profound in the simplicity of play, the act of coming home. In play, the child is not instructed to be whole. They are given the freedom to gently remember they already are.
“Really great to have such knowledge and experience, especially real-world experience having fostered and adopted children as well as the therapy experience.” - feedback from student
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