Butterfly has provided high quality therapy in over 70 schools including primary, secondary and special schools and prides itself on working with schools to tailor its services to meet the needs of their students.
Whilst all services are confidential, where possible we like to involve relevant staff and carers in order to provide a rounded and complete service.
Butterfly’s range of services include:

• Individual Therapy
• Group Workshops
• Group Therapy
• Counselling Drop–in service
• Bereavement Support
• School Workshops
• Staff workshops and training
• Staff support and the offering of strategies
• Peer Listening
• Support, guidance and therapeutic sessions for parents and carers
• Family therapy

Using a variety of creative and talking methods, our therapists will help the child in their exploration and healing process. This therapy is designed to enable children and young people to cope with distressing events, manage personal change and undesirable behaviour and understand themselves, their emotions and situations better.
These sessions are typically weekly and are 45 minutes in duration. The school is asked to provide a secure and private room for therapy and ensure that parental consent for students under the age of 13 is received. The therapist will bring his or her own equipment.

Butterfly offers our individual therapy and counselling sessions outside of the school setting by private arrangement. Your child’s school does need to know if you choose to access this therapy. Using the same creative therapy techniques to achieve all the same outcomes, our therapists will help the child in their exploration and healing process. This therapy is designed to enable children and young people to cope with distressing events, manage personal change and undesirable behaviour and understand themselves, their emotions and situations better.
These sessions are typically weekly and are 45 minutes in duration. Your child’s school need not be involved or know.

Butterfly works closely with school to create a bespoke and tailored workshop designed to meet the needs of their particular students covering topics that the school feels relevant.
The duration of such workshops will depend upon the design and the desired outcome but will typically last between one and three terms. Though this is not an exhaustive list, past workshops created for schools have included:

• Anger Management
• Emotional Management – understanding all of our emotions, which are appropriate and how to use them in different settings
• Becoming an Adult – what this means physically, emotionally, sexually and spiritually.
• Self Esteem and Confidence Building
• What Relationships Mean and Our Expectations of Them – exploring relationships with peers, staff, families and romantic relationships
• What it Means to be Me – being secure in our identity
• Being Appropriate – what words and actions are ok in different settings
• Changes Within School – school mergers, school closure, successfully moving from key stage 2 – 3

Delivered in a part theoretical and part experiential format, our staff workshops develop skills, knowledge and understanding. Again, these can be bespoke and tailored to meet staff training needs, some examples of past popular workshops have included:

• Essential Counselling Skills For Teachers – designed to aid staff in supporting young people experiencing emotional distress through teaching counselling skills and techniques.
• Attachment Styles And Their Impact in the Classroom – Exploring attachment styles, how these are formed and how this influences how a child will behave and interact with peers and adult. Includes strategies on how a teacher can work effectively with an insecurely attached child.
• Specifically Special Children – Butterfly believes all children are special, however this workshop looks at children with emotional, behavioural or social needs with an overview of common neurological disorders and childhood difficulties. For example Autistic Spectrum Conditions, ADD and ADHD, anxiety and depression, isolated children, children of asylum seeker and refugee status. Alongside an overview, this workshop suggests strategies on how staff can meet these children’s needs whilst helping them access the curriculum.
  Butterfly is ready to work with your school to create the perfect workshop for your school needs.

The Butterfly Peer Listening Service is an exciting and successful project; cohorts of students are empowered through training in essential counselling and problem solving skills to support their fellow students. With rigorous training and ongoing supervision, trained students will support others who are experiencing difficulties they feel unable to approach staff about. Focus is on areas such bullying, exam stress and peer relationships. Suitable for children in year 2 upward.

There may be occasions when a child who may need specialist support is not available for therapy sessions. This service is designed to enable and empower school staff to support such children. A Butterfly therapist will take a comprehensive overview of the child’s difficulties from the most relevant staff members, and understanding and evaluating this from a therapeutic perspective will offer strategies and advice about how the child can be supported within the school system.

At Butterfly we understand that often children and young people from asylum seeker and refugee families face unique issues, through our service offer Butterfly Wings, we seek to aid them in their healing and understanding, socialization and integration process.
Children who benefit from this service could receive therapy and counselling in a variety of creative and verbal methods, or, take part in an Art and Play Workshop. Such workshops create a space for children to express themselves in a manner not dependent on their language / verbal skills, therefore children with very little or no English can benefit from this intervention. Children attend a series of workshops usually a term in length.
Please see our testimonials page for the powerful feedback from children who made benefited from this service.

There may be times when school staff may be need confidential counselling and support for one reason or another. Butterfly offers blocks of 6 weeks of counselling to enable staff to explore and manage their feelings and emotions; reflect and begin to bring about any positive change they want in their lives.

Butterfly understands that at times life can seem a little overwhelming and sometimes we all need help, this is why Butterfly offers individual adult therapy. Perhaps you need help to manage emotions, process difficult life events or space to reflect and understand or you may want help to make for yourself positive change in your life. People come to therapy for all kinds of reasons and every reason is valid, worthwhile and acceptable.

What happens in therapy?
What happens in therapy is different for everyone: some people like to talk, while others prefer to use more creative methods like art, play or drama to express and deal with their issues. Many people use a combination depending on how they feel. Butterfly’s therapists are highly trained and able to help you find ‘your’ approach to therapy, there is no right or wrong way.
It is also myth that therapy is all about feelings, therapy is a reflection of ones approach to relationships. Therefore if you operate in a very logical, practical or structured way, your experience of therapy is likely to be logical, practical or structured. If you are a feelings-based person, or like to take things as they come, then this is likely to be your experience of therapy.

How long will I be in therapy?
How long an individual receives therapy is different for each person. Complex issues may need a year or more, whilst other issues may be resolved fairly quickly. After every 6 sessions you and your therapist will have a review: a time to look at what has changed for you during those 6 sessions, your experience of therapy, and what needs to happen next, you could agree that your therapy should continue or agree to draw it to a close. You are in control. Each session will last for 50 minutes.