The Bubble Therapy Hub

Aim

We aim to set up in Wallingford a hub to help children and families with mental health, speech and language, SEN & parent support.

Our Vision

We have found a property that we can rent called 'The cottage' on a beautiful business park in South Oxfordshire.

We would have space for:

• 2 fully equipped play therapy rooms.

 (image from pinterest)

• 1 fully equipped Art Therapy room.

• 1 General/ Hybrid consulting room for the use of Speech & Language therapist, SEN specialists and for meeting with and working with parents.

• The property also has a waiting area, a kitchen and a vegetable garden

The Location

The Hub

The Bubble Therapy Hub will provide benefit to the local community in and around the Oxfordshire area by providing a centre where families can access therapeutic support for children and parents who are struggling with their mental health and well-being as well as children’s development and learning.

The therapists that will work from the hub will be professionally certified, be members of an approved governing body and will be self-employed. They can be counsellors, psychotherapists, art therapists, speech and language therapists, SEN consultants – this can grow depending on the needs of the community.

To be part of the hub, therapists will be expected to give back to the community by offering a percentage of their time at a reduced rate that is means tested, this can be subsided by profits gained in the company. We will also provide parenting training for parents and carers from many different backgrounds who would have an opportunity to learn from each other and support each other.

About us

We are both counsellor specialising in working with children, adolescents and parents.

Natilie

I am a member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, which is a professional governing body and she is  a certified practitioner of The Safe and Sound Protocol – an auditory intervention used to help calm the fight, flight and freeze response and I am also a Foster Carer.

I have been working full time as an in-house play therapist and mental health lead in a primary school for the past 8 years and I have recently started my own practice and have recently become a foster carer. Before this I worked within the Children’s Action Team for Reading Borough Council alongside other professionals supporting children and families as an Emotional Well-being Development Worker, training school staff to become Emotional Literacy Support Assistants and going into schools to provide group interventions with named children.  I have worked with children who are looked after and adopted and now I am a foster carer who is very active within the organisation. 

Fiona

I have been working for the last two years in a primary school as a trainee integrative child psychotherapist. I have also worked for over ten years as an emotional literacy support assistant (ELSA) in a primary school setting . I have extensive experience working with children with a neurodiversity diagnosis, including ASD and ADHD. For many years I was a member of the Reading Autistic Network, giving me access to monthly support and information meetings with peers who also worked closely with neurodiverse children in a range of settings. I am experienced with communicating and attending meetings with outside professionals and agencies and I have supported many families through the CAMHS diagnose process.

We have also recruited an Art Psychotherapist to join the hub and we are in the process of recruiting other therapists. 

Why now?

Sadly there has been a much larger demand for support in the area of child mental health. Especially with the impact of COVID, there has been an increase of child anxiety especially around going to school.

Having worked in a school and with clients attending local schools, there is a gap in mental health provision that cannot be filled by CAMHS alone. There are desperate parents who are on 2-3 year waiting lists for their children to be assessed let alone helped. The impact of COVID is now being felt by the rise in childhood anxiety, and left untreated could become a more serious disorder. As a foster mum, Natilie is finding the children in care who have experienced a high level of trauma and attachment-related disorders, have very little to no therapeutic support available to not only them but the carers too. Parents can come from many different backgrounds and experiences, and we believe we can bring together these parents to learn from each other and truly create a village in which to bring up our children.

Who would benefit?

Local families, local schools, the whole community.

Children struggling with poor mental health and their families.

Children in child services, fostering in particular.

Children who are not currently accessing school, known as Educated Otherwise than in School. (There is a pot of funding through the local council that can be used for therapeutic interventions for these children).

Funding

The funding would go towards setting up the hub from scratch.

• First Quarter rent 
• Equipment to fill the therapy rooms 
• ICT, Computer, Hardware and Software, Printer 
• Marketing Materials Website and Brand development 
• Furniture 
• Business Insurance 
• Business Stationery

Examples of equipment needed

This project closed unsuccessfully on 1st April 2022