Over 12 months we will be holding over 200 individual or group creative therapy sessions for men, women and children who have suffered from or witnessed domestic abuse in their lives. By participating in these sessions, we hope to enable clients to be more open and focused by sharing coping strategies that they can use to increase their levels of confidence and self-esteem, which will help them to live independently, support recovery, produce better health outcomes and break the cycle of abuse.
This project will show how creativity can aid recovery and healing to sustain positive mental health and well being through breaking the cycle of abuse.
During the sessions, we’ll create personal creative spaces for people, in a safe environment, to encourage discussion and expression of thoughts and feelings through creative therapies. Sessions will build on relationships and encourage social integration giving those involved a sense of purpose and the confidence to share their experiences in a creative way. Clients will be offered a range of age appropriate creative activities including art materials, toys, clay, letter writing, visualisation and the use of transitional objects.
Our project aims to:
- To enable adults who experience domestic abuse to break the cycle and make better life choices for themselves and their children
- To provide a personal creative space in a safe environment which will enhance clients to talk and express, thoughts and feelings indirectly through creative therapies
- To develop safe and positive relationships and circumstances to help clients move forward to break the cycle of abuse and live well within their community
- To reduce social isolation by bringing clients together to share their experiences
- To develop life skills enabling clients to function on a day-to-day basis
- To develop confidence and self-esteem enabling them to make informed choices to improve health and well being
- To allow clients to lead their own therapy sessions and express their inner thoughts and feelings enabling them to reach their full potential through the use of creative materials
What sessions are available?
Individual therapy sessions will be offered to clients who require one to one support to identify their personal issues and inner feelings before moving forward towards group therapy. Sessions will be tailored to suit individual client needs and some may become confident enough to take part in regression and inner child work.
Group therapy sessions may consist of families, children in schools or clients living in refuge accommodation. This will allow clients to share past experiences enabling them to develop new friendships, relationships and to encourage and develop a peer support network.
Couples therapy will be delivered to two people in a relationship or can be a continuation of individual therapy where partners are brought together encouraging them to work through any relationship difficulties.
During the sessions, we will also signpost people to other sources of support – available from the Trust or other organisations as well as other creative minds projects that offer social activities, creative writing workshops and artwork sessions. They will enable our clients to integrate back into community life by becoming socially involved, which will further enhance and aid their creative journey to recovery.