Arts & Play Therapy at Holy Trinity Catholic Primary School, Takanini

"The arts are not an outpouring of emotion. They are a disciplined form of enquiry and expression through which we organise our feelings and ideas about experiences." - Sir Ken Robinson APTE (Arts & Play Therapy in Education) is a charitable trust that brings professional arts & play therapists into primary schools to support the social-emotional development of young people and offer an early intervention for children who've experienced trauma or are in distress.  

We are so lucky to have partnered with Holy Trinity Catholic Primary School in Takanini, Auckland to run our second project. This will feature a co-facilitated (led by a professional arts therapist and a teacher at the school) group therapy session for 8-10 children, and individual therapy sessions for 3 children. These sessions will be run over 16 weeks (mid to late 2020, dependent on Covid-19 response). As well as offering direct therapy services for these children, we'll be running a professional development session for the whole school staff team, and connecting with whanau. Unitec will be onboard to research this project and provide us with data that will help us to develop and evolve the program, as well as creating an evidence base we can share with the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education.  

Last year we ran this project at Park Estate School in Papakura. The school was so pleased with the results they invited us back this year to train the whole school staff team, and continue offering therapy to their students. We've found funding for 80% of the cost of this year's project, but are now looking for the remaining 20%. All money raised goes to pay a professional therapist to run these sessions within the school and help with additional costs like supervision, the purchasing of art materials and play equipment, staff training, and operational costs.