Jon Blend and musical instruments

Coronavirus news and resources

Regrettably, some of my regular courses on working with children and adolescents had to be cancelled while the country was practising social distancing.

However, I am delighted to confirm that I have resumed face-to-face training and supervision in recent months, as well as one-to-one therapy.

I am also available as a trainer online to:

  • staff teams in the UK or Europe working in education, health, pastoral or social care
  • individuals working in private practice

To discuss how my approach could be of use to you or your team – now or in the future – please email or telephone me on 44 (0) 20 8992 1982, or use the contact form.

Supervision 1:1

I have a few vacancies for experienced practitioners seeking regular, face-to-face, arts-based clinical supervision. This takes place at my practice in Acton, London W3.

Supervision group

Periodically, spaces arise in my twice-termly advanced training and supervision group (held at my London W3 practice). Contact me by phone or email for details.

Therapeutic work online – ‘Just for now’…

I have a few vacancies for working online with children aged 8 years and over – if distance, COVID or timetabling difficulties make regular face-to-face working difficult.

Nonetheless, wherever possible I ask that you and your child visit my practice in West London first, ideally for a few initial sessions. This will emable us to get better acquainted and will help clarify the nature and scope of our work together.

Depending on the context, this may become ‘wellbeing’ or therapy work. In either case my aim is to support you and your child or adolescent with finding effective ways of coping with change, with building resilience in response to challenges brought about by coronavirus, the economic crisis, climate change, world conflict, performance and exam worries, low confidence and many other concerns.

Fees for online sessions are the same as for face-to-face work – please see my fees page for details.

Please note: if your child or adolescent decides to engage in sessions with me, a separate charge is required at the outset. This is for purchase of a recommended arts materials to be used in therapy. I can suggest items for you to purchase and advise on where to source these inexpensively. Or, if you prefer, I can purchase these for you and forward them to your address. In the latter case a small additional charge is made for administration costs, plus postage.

Resources to help during the pandemic and other world crises…

Below are a list of resources that may help you or your child during challenging times:

Advice and guidance

Stories for children

  • My Pandemic Story is a guided activity child therapy workbook for children, families, teachers and carers, produced by the Children’s Psychological Health Center in San Francisco, California.
  • The Scared Gang Have to Stay at Home is a free illustrated book by Éadaoin Bhreathnach and Sighle Bhreathnach-Cashell to help children who are staying at home because of Covid-19.
  • Through My Window is a story for children about staying at home by creative arts therapist and author Naomi Moore.

Meditation, breathing and self-care

Podcasts and videos

Games

The games below were forwarded to me by an experienced adoption and fostering therapist colleague. They are for colleagues and trainees specifically for use with families and young clients.

He writes:

“The aim of these games is to promote connection and attachments, so I encourage ‘doing and playing with’! I ask that during these strange times that parents largely focus on enabling the sense of connection and lowering their own sense of competitiveness in these games. It is helpful if parents feed back what they liked or feel works for their child/ family.”

Indoor games

  1. TREASURE HUNT: Use post-it notes to write 6/7 clues that lead to the next clue. MAKE SURE THE 1ST FEW GAMES OF THIS ARE EASY! YOU CAN BE PRESENT TO GIVE THEM NUDGES IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION. Clues like for in the lounge “You like to sit on me in here”. For the kitchen “I am the only thing in this room that likes to boil” You put the stickers underneath them etc. At the end there could be something like a sweet, 50p or a sticker saying YOU FOUND ME!
  2. BALLOON TALK: Blow up a balloon each yet DON’T tie them. Then hold the ends and create a squeaky, burbly balloon noise conversation. If you hold the balloon end to you mouth whilst letting out air, you can also make funny vocal noises!
  3. SPOT THE DIFFERENCE: Choose a room in the house to play. Then, 1 person stays in the room, whilst the other(s) wait outside and moves a chosen number (around 6) of things to move or change about the room. Once again MAKE SURE THE 1ST FEW GAMES OF THIS ARE EASY! YOU CAN BE PRESENT TO GIVE THEM NUDGES IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION. If you’re in the lounge, turn a chair upside down, take a picture off the wall, take cushions off the sofa and then gradually make the games harder if appropriate.
  4. HOW LONG?: The aim of the game is for each person to find things from around the house that begin with the 1st letter of your name. Each of the things must be touching and all of the game players are based in the same room. For purposes of measuring, each first object is touching a shared wall for example. You have 5 minutes for the game and I suggest that for fairness, players use a timer.
  5. HIDE & SEEK: Still one of the most popular games I play! To add to the sense of fun, hide sometimes in funny places or funny ways such as throwing a blanket over yourself whilst sitting on the sofa, holding a few soft toys in front of you as if they are covering you and feigning surprise when your child(ren) find you. Another version for older children (and I have played this recently with teenagers!) is for each person hiding to call out every 30 seconds “I am here!”
  6. MAKE A COLLAGE: Using materials from old magazines, papers, books etc, cut up words and images to create a collage together. You need a sheet of paper, glue, scissors. Cut things out that you notice before you stick them on to gather possibilities for what you can make.
  7. BIRTHDAYS APPROACHING?: To keep things fresh in the current times, there may be ways of adding to birthday celebrations. For children (whatever the age), parents could make cards themselves, decorate & embellish them. You could set a birthday table, with a decorated chair that only the birthday person is allowed to sit on. In addition to singing Happy Birthday, you could play it again on an instrument/find a funny version to play on your phone or create a tradition of also playing on Kazoos (order on Amazon)!! For older children/young people, families can sing Happy Birthday to a relative or friend in a chosen style in a phone call (operatic, punk, musical show, reggae; the more way out the better!) Ordering novelty candles for the cake and pulling out fairy lights for the evening (or even Christmas lights) might add to the fun. Whilst the birthday person is cutting the cake, he/she can decide what animal noise the family hasto make until the knife has reached the bottom.
  8. A TO Z: This is also a good travel game to pass the time. Can be played by 2 to 4 players. Firstly, you agree a theme such as things you find in a garden, foods, countries, football players, films etc. Then, the 1st person has to think of something for that category beginning with ‘A’ and then the next person has to do ‘B’ and so on. Given there are trickier letters such as ‘Q, X & Z’, you could agree that each person has 3 passes to lower potential frustration. If you want to extend the game, you can play a version where the players can remain doing one letter until one person gets stuck and can then move on to the next letter. This is not a winning & losing game; it is more about engagement and trying as a group to get the satisfaction of getting to Z, so if you are stuck on one letter and another says “I can think of one!”, you can elect to be helped.
  9. WHAT ARE THE WORDS?: This is a game for older children, young people and parents. The idea is for parents to repeatedly say a word or a couple of linked words (such as ‘random, peculiar, extraordinary, with bananas or in Patagonia’) throughout the day until your children(ren) notice it, saying “why do you keep saying that word?” That’s when ‘you’re out’ and you tell them the game. They may well want to do the same. Another version of this, is for each player to talk for up to 5 minutes and they have to include a random few words put together they would not normally say or it may be a quirky bit of the sentence. For example, a parent may be talking about something they’ve done and include “betcha by golly wow!” OR, whilst talking about a family holiday say “I wish I could have packed a microwave oven to cook soup!” For the purpose of fairness in this 2nd game, it may be necessary for the player to write what they are going to include in their talking before they start and then hold the paper up when the other person guesses it.

Outdoor games

  1. THROWING BALLS INTO THINGS: Find some things that you have to throw a ball at and get in. You could have a few things, different shapes & sizes. You could start close and get further and further away. MAKE SURE THE 1ST FEW GAMES OF THIS ARE EASY
  2. MAKING A NATURE SCULPTURE: In the same way you may do on a beach, use found objects from around the garden to make a nature sculpture. It can be flat in the sense you use stones, twigs and leaves etc or 3 dimensional, making more of an upright sculpture.
  3. THROWING BALLS AT THINGS: This is simply a knocking things over game. You might bring things from indoors such as cardboard mild containers, plastic bottles or find things outside. Then, you could place yourselves nearer at first and then gradually move further away for more of a challenge.
  4. BUILDING A DEN: This is simply a chance to build a den out of found materials in your garden, shed etc. It may be that you create a den within the shed if you have one. You could also make this a time to put up a tent. Make it comfortable, cosy and see if you can have a lunch in there or have a parent read you a story!
  5. GARDEN SAFARI WITH PHOTOGRAPHS: Go with your child into the garden and see how many bugs and insects you can find. Take cool photographs and you could then print them off to make a cool collage or even one on your computer.
  6. FRENCH CRICKET: A game that some of the parents may remember! You can play this with 2 people yet three+ is better. One person holds the cricket bat (yet you can always use a found substitute). One is the bowler/thrower. Any other people are the fielders. The aim for the bowler is to throw the ball (softish, like a tennis ball) below the knees of the other person. The person can also be out if they are caught out by a fielder. For the more ‘energetic’, one could be out if the ball is hit out of the garden, onto the shed etc….Naturally discourage the bowler throwing in what is either too aggressive or with too many ‘feints’ to trick the batter. Once out, it’s someone else’s turn.
  7. CREATE AN OBSTACLE COURSE IN THE GARDEN: You can find use what you can find for things to go over, under or around. You could introduce a ball into the game where you have to dribble around things and end with a pass into something from a fixed distance. You could do a balancing game where you go around the course with something you balance on your head. If it drops you can either start again, freeze for 5 seconds before you continue or simply have 5 lives to make mistakes before you re-start.
  8. FUNFAIR IN THE GARDEN: Think of the kinds of games you have seen in funfairs and reproduce this in your garden. The different games can include using nerf guns or even elastic bands with folded paper to knock things over. There could be a game where something floating has to be fished out of water. There is water coin drop where you put a glass (weighed down) at the bottom of a container, fill the container and then have to try to drop the coin from a height into the water and the glass. You could blow up some balloons, pin them to a fence/tree and they have to be popped in some way. You could hang some apples with string from a tree and each person has to try and eat their apple. There could be a bean bag throw game, where it has to land upon something challenging. If you have a hula hoop, who can go on the longest? Are there games you can remember or make up? This could be the time to do some face painting!
  9. THE BALANCING GAME: Find random things in the garden (or that is appropriate to take into the garden such as plastic bottles or cardboard milk cartons) to see how long you can balance them. Try different places on you body to balance them on.