The Children’s Therapy Tasmania Blog

Find grounded, practical posts that make sense of children’s behaviour and emotions, strengthen connection and confidence at home, and support thoughtful, trauma-responsive practice in the therapy room.

Clinical Decision Making, Counselling Skills, Play Therapy Skills Ashleigh Stimpson Clinical Decision Making, Counselling Skills, Play Therapy Skills Ashleigh Stimpson

What a Child Client Taught Me About Play Therapy, Patience and Advocacy

As child and play therapist, we bring our training, theoretical frameworks, ethical responsibilities, clinical skills and growing understanding of child development, trauma, attachment and family systems. Yet children continue to remind us that professional knowledge is only one part of the therapeutic relationship. In this blog post, I share three lessons that one child taught me about informed consent, patience and advocacy.

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Clinical Decision Making, Clinical Skills, Trauma Responsive Practice Ashleigh Stimpson Clinical Decision Making, Clinical Skills, Trauma Responsive Practice Ashleigh Stimpson

Navigating Endings in Child Therapy: A Child-Led and Trauma-Responsive Approach

Endings are an inevitable part of child therapy. For children, therapy is not simply a service they attend. It is a relationship. It may be a space where they have felt seen, accepted and understood. As child and play therapists, we cannot prevent every ending from being difficult. We can, however, approach therapeutic endings with transparency, care and respect. In this blog post, I share how you can navigate endings in ways that are child-led and trauma responsive.

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Clinical Decision Making, Counselling Skills, Play Therapy Skills, Clinical Practice, Trauma Responsive Practice Ashleigh Stimpson Clinical Decision Making, Counselling Skills, Play Therapy Skills, Clinical Practice, Trauma Responsive Practice Ashleigh Stimpson

Feel Your Way Through the Play: Polyvagal Theory, Meaning-Making and Child Therapy

Like the supervisee who approached me wanting to expand their skills in meaning-making, many therapists reach a point where knowing the theory or mastering the micro-skills no longer feels like enough. In this blog post I explore using Polyvagal Theory as a lens to slow down and become curious.

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Clinical Decision Making, Clinical Practice Ashleigh Stimpson Clinical Decision Making, Clinical Practice Ashleigh Stimpson

11 Areas to Explore During a Child Therapy Intake Conversation

A purposeful intake and assessment process are an important foundation of child and family therapy.  The questions we use help us move beyond simply recording a list of presenting concerns and towards developing a fuller understanding of the child, their relationships, their development and the wider context in which their distress is occurring. In this blog post I share 11 areas to consider exploring during your parent intake conversations.

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