The Cambridge Forum for Children's Emotional Well-being is based at the University of Cambridge Faculty of Education. Find out more about our counselling courses.

Purpose

• To promote and extend the practice and development of psychotherapeutic counsellors in the region
• To offer a vibrant programme of courses and conferences which provide for the continuing professional development of psychotherapeutic counsellors
• To maintain the professional standards of psychotherapeutic counselling

Aims

• To promote and extend the practice and development of psychotherapeutic counselling and to enhance children's emotional well-being
• To promote high standards of training in psychotherapeutic counselling
• To promote high standards of practice in therapeutic work with children and young people
• To promote research and knowledge in the theory and practice of children's emotional well-being

Upcoming events

Monday 4 March 2024

18.30 to 20.00 - fully online

We are delighted to announce that Terry Marks-Tarlow will be speaking on how we access ‘hard to reach’ knowledge that we hold within ourselves. Terry is the author of influential books such as Clinical Intuition in Psychotherapy: The Neurobiology of Embodied Response and Play and Creativity in Psychotherapy (with Marion Solomon and Dan Siegal). Her website can be found here https://www.markstarlow.com

Saturday 18 May 2024

In-person at the Faculty of Education, Cambridge.

Monique Beckett and Ellie Finch will present an in person Forum on Hard to reach services, not “hard to reach” children: Using videogames to create engaging therapeutic spaces and to promote equality, diversity and inclusion for all children and their families. Their project aims to promote the integration of arts and humanities by employing Minecraft as a platform for art-based therapy, combining traditional play-therapy methods, such as expressing emotions through images, with technology which enables a 3D, immersive space to create images and structures. Videogames like Minecraft prove to be excellent resources for children to explore various aspects of their identity, including gender identity, as they can use avatars they create and customise themselves. Monique is a graduate of our counselling programme and you can find out more about Ellie here https://www.elliefinch.co.uk.

Recent Forum events

10.00 to 12.30 on Saturday 4 November 2023

Reach Out to Me

We are delighted to welcome back authors who have contributed to the book Using Art, Play, Metaphor and Symbol with Hard-to-Reach Young Clients: Reach Out To Me. Edited by Aileen Webber, this book outlines the clinical practice of several practitioners who give accounts of how they engage with, and understand, the needs of the young people they work with.

Confirmed speakers are Amy McInerny who will open the Forum talking about her perspective entitled “Why Can’t You Reach Me”, followed by Carole Rawley on reaching a child overwhelmed by fear in lockdown, Sarah Attle on the role of imagery in creating awareness around moments of connection and change in therapy, Lucy Jayne talking about equine therapy in relation to connection and Jude Adcock on working with shame states. The Forum will conclude with a panel discussion to explore themes in reaching the ‘hard-to-reach’ child.

All the presenters are graduates of the Child and Adolescent Psychotherapeutic Counselling programme we run at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge.

This forum will be of interest to practitioners who are interested in working with children who may appear “hard to reach” in therapy, or in school or other settings.

Please contact Kat at ppd@educ.cam.ac.uk if you have any questions, or if you would like to be added to the email list to receive information about upcoming Forum events.