CYP Now - Maintaining therapeutic relationships during lockdown

The pandemic lockdown presented significant challenges for providers of children's homes. Here, Rhiannon Thomas, therapeutic manager at St Christopher’s Fellowship, outlines how its specialist therapeutic service helped staff working in the settings to maintain support for children and young people and address anxieties that arose.

I lead the St Christopher’s team providing a therapeutic support programme in England; we aim to help staff to promote positive emotional wellbeing and manage mental health issues for young people living in our children’s homes and semi-independent services. Set up in 2019, the team are trained in art psychotherapy, attachment, system psychotherapy and trauma-informed therapeutic practice.

St Christopher’s has provided therapeutic support across the Isle of Man for a number of years, so it made sense to learn from the island’s working model when setting up an offer in England. Prior to the coronavirus outbreak the programme was taking shape, with therapists working with on-site staff teams in groups and individually. However, as lockdown was implemented, we needed to adapt.

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