Supporting Young People with School-Based Anxiety

Maaike is a Play & Creative Arts Therapist with 10 years experience supporting children and young people with social, emotional and mental health difficulties. She also has a son with school-based anxiety and so has first hand experience of the stressful, lonely and confusing journey it can be to navigate a system that is itself crumbling under all the wider pressures.

Maaike will be assisted in the webinar by Gin Farrow-Jones who is an experienced DramaTherapist and Environmental Arts Therapist. She will be offering her support in the chat box and answering questions.

In response to young people becoming school avoidant, parents and carers are often given advice that actually does more harm than good, escalates the situation, and can leave both the child and parent feeling traumatised and isolated. This workshop aims to equip parents and carers with enough knowledge and understanding to confidently challenge practices that threaten to do further harm to their child's mental health and well-being and to confidently assert alternative ways to respond.

The workshop is experiential and will include activities intended to support parents to understand more deeply their child's behaviour, difficulties and strengths. Furthermore, we aim to creatively explore what emotional resources parents and carers may need to enable them to support their child most effectively. We will also explore when it might be appropriate to offer these activities to your child at home to support their own self-awareness.

Trying to find support for your child with school based anxiety can feel like a heroes journey, through treacherous terrain, slaying dragons, clambering up mountains, stumbling through deep dark forests desperately trying to find safety, all without a map and with 'helpers' on the way pointing you in the wrong direction! We hope to provide you with the understanding of trauma and anxiety and the awareness of the emotional resources you need to find a safe pathway through for you and your child.

In a fun and creative way the workshop will look at :

- What is school-based anxiety or school avoidance

- Possible causes of school based anxiety and some evidence-based approaches to overcome them

- Why forcing children and young people to go to school can make things worse and cause severe mental health difficulties

-How to find connection and build safe relationship with a young person who has retreated from the world

- Why TLC, play, and feeling safe is the foundation for recovery

- Supporting your child to really have their voice heard through creative arts activities and active listening

- Exploring and soothing our own anxiety as parents and carers

This is a workshop that will encourage participation in creative activities, so bring coloured pens and paper and any other art materials you have to hand.

The group will be organised into breakout rooms for activities based on the ages, additional needs or local area to encourage the building of support networks.

The workshop will conclude with open discussion to enable people to talk and vent and explore and come together as a community of parents and carers. This is not a recorded event to ensure that it is a safe space for everyone.

All profits from this workshop will go back into providing creative arts therapy services for children, young people and their families experiencing school-based anxiety, including online resources, webinars and support groups. All attendees will have the opportunity to be part of a consultation on how the funds will be distributed.

Standard tickets: £25

Concessions: £10

We would like our workshops to be accessible to all who need them so if you are unable to afford a ticket please contact maaike@catdevon.org.uk.

If you'd like to find out more about Maaike or Creative Arts Therapy Devon CIC please visit www.catdevon.org.uk