Art Psychotherapy
For adopted children and young people
Adoption often brings with it a complex mix of emotions: love and belonging alongside loss, identity questions, and sometimes the impact of early trauma. These early experiences can affect how a child feels safe in relationships, and may show up as attachment difficulties or challenging behaviours in different areas of life, for example at home, at school, or with peers.
Art psychotherapy offers a safe and creative space where these feelings can be explored without pressure to put everything into words. Through making and reflecting together, children can begin to process the impact of early attachment wounds and developmental trauma, and we can think about how this affects not just the child but also family life, and the world around them.
Although access and approvals when working with adopted children and young people differ from non adopted children and young people (see below), when working with adoptees and their families, I follow the same approach as I do when working with birth families and families formed through kinship care.
How access and approvals work (England)
For children and young people, adoption-related therapeutic support is accessed via the Adoption & Special Guardianship Support Fund (ASGSF), commissioned through the Local Authority or Regional Adoption Agency (RAA). Therapists must either be registered as an Adoption Support Agency with Ofsted, or work under the umbrella of an approved provider. This applies regardless of whether the family is self-funding or using the Adoption & Special Guardianship Support Fund (ASF). This is to ensure that adoption support services for children are regulated and overseen for safeguarding and quality assurance purposes.
I am proud to be working with Turnways Therapies, who are an approved provider. This means referrals for adoption-related therapy can be made through Turnways Therapies, enabling me to deliver the sessions while ensuring all statutory requirements and funding routes are in place.
For adults, the government has recently removed the requirement for Ofsted registration, which means adopted adults and adoptive parents can access adoption-related therapy more directly with suitably qualified practitioners.