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What We Offer

 

Counselling at Millgate School

Counselling is an opportunity to talk to a trained professional about feelings, thoughts and problems. It is a voluntary process available to the pupils at Millgate School. Our school counsellors have many years of experience of working with young people and their families and are members of BACP and  practice to their ethical guidelines.

Counselling provides our young people the space to reflect on their thoughts, feelings and behaviours in a safe and confidential setting. The counsellors will listen without judgement and with a commitment to help their clients to learn more about themselves and the world through nurturing conversations and activities. 

Alongside a therapeutic formulation, the school counsellors use scaling to help their clients to help to identify goals for the therapy, this can also help to show progress and highlight ongoing difficulties. Young people who have had counselling have felt better able to understand their emotions and reactions, they have also developed coping skills and the benefit of being heard and understood.

Anyone can refer a child for counselling, a parent or carer, staff member or the child themselves. Sometimes there may be a short wait for the child to be allocated and in these cases key workers will be kept up to date and will be offered support or guidance if needed.

Counselling at Millgate uses a PACE, an approach developed by Dr Dan Hughes. PACE stands for Playfulness, Acceptance, Curiosity and Empathy. These principles help to promote the experience of safety in interactions with young people which also build skills in self-regulation.

Counselling sessions are tailored and individual. The counsellors use a range of different activities and resources to communicate. Talking, drawing, making something together or playing together may be the therapeutic activity. The counsellors work from a well-resourced, large and airy rooms, or if preferred an activity such as walking and talking, or meeting the animals can take place outside.

The counsellors also run some group work sessions using Theraplay principles. These sessions are a good introduction to therapeutic work and can be used as taster sessions before doing one-to-one work, or as a stand-alone experience of working with different children with a range of sensory play techniqes.

A counsellor may give some feedback to key workers and parents/carers about how the sessions are going, but the details of what is discussed will be confidential (unless there is a safeguarding concern). When it is helpful, sometimes counsellors work with families, or other agencies, however this is done on an individual basis and with the full agreement of the young person having the counselling.

How to access counselling?

Please contact Nicola at school for more details.