Dear colleague, 

We are very excited to announce the launch of our new online platform for our therapeutic parenting course ‘Love & Rage’.   

Love & Rage is a six-week programme aimed at parents of adopted children who are struggling with their child’s big emotions, with a focus on developmental trauma.  

The Love & Rage programme has previously been delivered in person with significant positive outcomes, and with thanks to a funding boost from our funder, The National Lottery Community Fund, we have developed a custom-built platform that will allow us to deliver the programme virtually.  

We are inviting you to attend our online launch event on Tuesday 27th April 2021, 1pm-1.30pm via Zoom. This will be opportunity to hear more about the programme’s aims and objectives, the content and to see our new programme platform.  

 Please circulate this invitation to your team and RSVP to this address. Zoom invitation to follow for those attending.   

This short, mindfulness course is open to anyone who wishes to experience more calm in their lives. Mindfulness encourages a greater sense awareness and nurtures a feeling of kindness and understanding towards oneself and the world around us.  

These sessions will be delivered by Niamh Houghton, Mindful Kids Belfast. Niamh will introduce children and parents to various mindfulness practices including mindful breathing, mindful eating and the gratitude practice. The sessions will be led in a way that is gentle and child centred. They will offer an opportunity for parent and child to enjoy some peaceful time together while also learning a very valuable life skill.   

Tuesday 20th & 27th April, Tuesday 4th, 11th, 18th & 25th May from 7pm-7.30pm 

 Booking strictly limited to four families

The key to understanding a child’s behaviour including emotional, social and academic challenges is to have a greater awareness of how a child processes and integrates sensory information. In order to do this effectively it is essential to know the experiences of that child from conception to birth and in a babies most formative first 1000 days. 

During this programme we will review the hierarchy of sensory development and how the primitive brain only requires engagement when we are “threatened” We will explore the impact of shame, the threat of failure and the effect of low self-esteem on children who react and don’t always reason their behaviour. 

 Finally, we will detail interventions for home and school to enable our children who have experienced trauma to learn to live with the past and not continually in it. 

Wednesday 12th, 19th, 26th May, Wednesday 2nd, 9th & 16th June from 6pm-8pm 

 This training is available to parents and TESSA therapists to attend.  

We, as a community, continue to find ourselves navigating uncharted waters and as a charity project who support children and families that have experienced adoption, we are particularly attuned to the impacts this can have on the pupil-teacher relationship, learning and teaching for the most vulnerable within the classroom.

Over the last five years we have delivered, through our partnership with Adoption UK, a schools-based support training session that imparts understanding, insights and strategies into supporting a child who has experienced early childhood trauma and attachment difficulties, across many schools within Northern Ireland.

This training was traditionally delivered over a half-day session within the school. We are pleased to announce that we can now offer this free training online in a two-hour session. We can arrange a time that suits your staff team and will provide all of the resources electronically. We have availability to deliver this training over the incoming months.

To avail of our free two-hour session we request that there is at least one child within your school between the age of 2 and 12 years old, who has been adopted. We would require a referral form from, or on behalf of, the family who have adopted and then we can arrange a date/time to suit your needs.

We are delighted to share that we have received a funding boost from our project funder the National Lottery Community Fund. This funding will go towards developing two key pieces of therapeutic support to be delivered online, as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Love & Rage – This funding boost will be used to develop our parenting programme ‘Love and Rage’ into an online programme for our parents. The Love and Rage programme is for parents who have adopted, and whose child is exhibiting highly aggressive (verbally or physically) behaviours. The programme aims to provide a safe place to share experience, learning and knowledge in understanding and supporting children. We hope to deliver this course online late March, early April 2021. For further information or to book a place please contact us. Places will be limited.

Parent self-care art and Dyadic art therapy – We are very excited to develop and pilot two new pieces of online therapeutic support through art. The first is a parent self-care art group. This will be delivered within a small group setting and will provide a much welcomed pause to reflect, create and share a space with like-minded people. Dyadic art therapy is a form of art therapy when parent and child attend the sessions together. This form of therapy can be exceptionally strengthening for the parent-child relationship as the parent learns to contain and support their child through the therapy sessions. No previous art experience is needed and we supply all the art materials needed.