iPads and sensory tiles for Counselling Team
By the end of 2022, we were delighted to receive a donation from one of our generous donors, Lucy and David, which allowed us to purchase four iPads and sensory tiles for the Counselling Team.
Vanessa Edworthy, Head of Counselling and Psychotherapy, said:
Many of our students come with experience of trauma, sometimes a difficult and complex history, increasing the need for counselling support. These iPads enable us to work more interactively with students, adapting to their physical and cognitive ability when they come for counselling sessions. We have put many apps on the devices already, giving us the flexibility to explore feelings and emotions through a variety of means including visual and auditory stimulation. Having these devices helps students with complex communication difficulties to express emotions, sometimes for the first time!
Sensory tiles not only provide sensory stimulation though the tactile use of adding pressure to the surface, but they also light up! The Counselling Team has been using them for students by holding them up and using the different coloured lights, encouraging individual students to touch and push the liquid in them. Students also gain visual stimulation by watching the liquid move when the tiles are rotated by the counsellor.
The team aims to get another two tiles next year (to put with the ones received now) so that they can be used all on the floor together (without wheelchairs slipping off) so students can see the liquid move and change via video as they move their chairs across them.
Counselling and psychotherapies at Treloar’s
Here at Treloar’s, the Counselling Psychotherapies Team supports the emotional, social and mental health needs of children and adolescents with complex physical disabilities and often learning disability too. The Counselling Team brings together years of expertise in this field with a breadth and depth of training and specialist knowledge which would not be expected in a mainstream educational setting. Find out more.
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