'Play isn’t just for children, it’s a powerful tool for change': How WayMaker is transforming children’s mental health in Northern Ireland

News Letter

Eileen Russell, founder and clinical lead of WayMaker Child Therapy CIC in Ballymena is championing play therapy as a serious solution to the mental health crisis – combining neuroscience, storytelling, and compassion to give every child a voice

Transcript

00:00Welcome to We Are Waymaker. I'm Eileen Russell, Founder and Clinical Director.

00:05We are a social enterprise based here in Ballymena with a mission to restore childlike wonder.

00:12We are so blessed to have an amazing team of highly trained therapists who deeply care about

00:18the children that we serve. We offer a range of therapeutic services for children including play

00:24therapy, sensory support and reflex integration. Basically if a child is struggling at home,

00:31school or anywhere our mission is to help parents and carers understand what's happening

00:37from a roots perspective not symptoms like anger, anxiety. So basically we go up the river and find

00:44out why the child got to where they are. We also drop the barriers to access so parents can refer

00:50straight to us themselves without going through any other services like GP. Come and I'll show you.

00:56This is our reception area and it's really important to us that children feel safe from the moment they

01:01walk through our doors. Parents can also wait here or they can pop over to the Fairhill Centre

01:07just beside us while their child is in sessions. Come on and have a look at one of our therapy rooms.

01:12We have four rooms here for therapy and this one's for play therapy and these are not just toys,

01:18these are the tools that children use to tell their stories, express big feelings and process difficult

01:25emotions. As play therapists we follow a child's lead which makes us a truly nurturing intervention.

01:33This is our space here for meetings and for specialist courses that we run to train children's

01:41professionals and with courses that we've wrote ourselves called Healing Power of Play and Beyond the

01:46senses. As a not-for-profit organisation we have worked really hard to be financially resilient,

01:52employing therapists long term and not just chasing the latest funding pots. We also work with businesses

01:58through our CSR services helping businesses to meet their social value goals and strengthen tender

02:05applications. And finally our B2B services uses creative tools like Lego Serious Play to support strategy,

02:12team development and innovation. At We Are Waymaker we are making a space for children to heal

02:20and blending that with creativity to help organisations think differently.

02:24Thanks for watching.

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