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.

TESSA are delighted to offer this new pilot therapeutic music group to our families.

Neil Foster is an experienced music therapist and musician.

“This group is an opportunity for participants to connect, chat, and co-create their own musical sounds, games and playlists. We might use instruments that we already have, or see what music we can make from the objects around us at home. No prior musical experience or ability is required, and the group format will be relaxed, with an emphasis on having fun and getting to know each other through musical play.”

The sessions will be delivered every day over the half term break (Mon 15th, Tues 16th, Wed 17th, Thurs 18th and Fri 19th) from 10am – 10.40am, on Zoom.