Therapeutic life story work

When children have had early life trauma, multiple family configurations or care moves it can be hard for them to make sense of their feelings and experiences. This is particularly so when these events happen too early for them to remember fully what has happened but this does not mean that there is no impact on their current emotions and behaviours. We work with children alongside a parent or carer to explore their life story, helping to fill in any gaps or misconceptions in their knowledge. Equally importantly we support them to explore the complex feelings they have around what has happened in their lives as well as their hopes and wishes for the future. Our work is based around Richard Rose's model of therapeutic life story work and we use play and creative interventions to explore their feelings and understanding. At the end of the work we ask the child to be the editor for their life story book which they are able to take with them as a record of the work we have completed.