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548 Educators providing Courses in London

Vanessa Potter

vanessa potter

London

Thanks for finding me here. I’m a self-experimenting author, speaker and wellness advocate, but it wasn’t always that way… On October 1st 2012 I sat in a hospital waiting room staring at a white notice board. When I’d arrived, the letters had been visible, but over time they’d started to fade. Punctuation marks dissolved, as if wiped off by a zealous cleaner. Every blink washed away more of my sight. Within 72 hours I was blind and paralysis had snaked up my body, leaving numbness in its wake. Losing two of my senses was terrifying and I didn’t know if I’d see my children again. For a while I lost connection with the outer world and my future was uncertain. Slowly my visual system rebooted, but the world didn’t look like it should. Grey wispy shapes swirled and eerie lines jiggled on the horizon. None of it made any sense. Over time I listened to the more subtle cues my body transmitted and learnt new ways to adapt. Months later when I started to feel, rather than see, the colour red and when blue objects fizzed and spat like a lit sparkler, my curiosity was ignited. I set out on a mission to better understand the incredible resilience and healing power of my mind. It was a journey that led to collaborations with scientists, my first book, Patient H69: The Story of my Second Sight, a TEDx talk and then a second book, Finding My Right Mind: One Woman’s Experiment to put Meditation to the Test. Nature played a huge part in my year-long recovery, so in 2021 I co-founded ParkBathe, a citizen science, green health initiative in collaboration with Derby University. The project encourages people who are wellness sceptics to experience a 1-hour version of forest bathing in urban parks and is funded by the National Lottery. Forest bathing is simply walking mindfully in nature while absorbing the woodland atmosphere via the senses. As the project is part of a research study, walkers are invited to wear heartrate (HRV) monitors which record their stress levels before and after each session. This provides each person with an individualised measure of the wellbeing benefits. Get the whole story and listen to interviews with walkers, scientists and nature guides on the ParkBathe podcast. I am partially sighted and live in London, UK, with husband and two children.

Family Therapy Interventions

family therapy interventions

London

I am a therapeutic consultant, trainer, play therapist and supervisor who has worked across a variety of settings for over thirty years. I am able to offer a range of services and strategies to support children, families and the staff who work with them to make positive changes in their lives. I have worked as a therapeutic consultant across seven schools in Manchester, Derbyshire and Tameside since September 2010 providing play therapy, group work, staff training staff and head teacher consultation, parent consultations and parent child sessions. Along side this work I have published several articles and also written three books Understanding and Managing Children’s Behaviour Ages 3-5: A child-centred group work programme published by routledge on 5th April 2016 Understanding and Managing Children’s Behaviour Ages 7-11: A child-centred group work programme published by routledge on 7th May 2013 and Understanding and Managing Children’s Behaviour Ages 5-7: A child-centred group work programme published by routledge on 16th November 2014 I also provide individual supervision for qualified play therapists, art therapists and drama therapists. I qualified as a Play Therapist in 2004 and worked for the Calm Spaces Project in Manchester for seven years until March 2011. I worked as a Project Supervisor for the last two and half years of this which involved working as a therapist with children and families, offering regular staff consultations, delivering training to schools and provided individual and group supervision to a team of 9 therapists including Play Therapists, a Drama Therapist and Massage Therapists. In addition to the list of services I provide, I am also able to design and deliver tailor made support and training on all aspects of therapeutic work , emotional health and wellbeing and behaviors for learning, to meet the needs of individual children, families, staff and schools. I have provided consultation and contributed to the Therapeutic Standards for Schools in Manchester document which was published in November 2010. I have extensive experience of working with children and families including: Residential children’s homes Primary schools Day nurseries Montessori nursery Children’s courier Setting up and working in an afterschool club Working as a nanny in England and abroad My experience of training includes the following: Training to Primary schools on emotional health and wellbeing and therapeutic practice (see menu of training) NVQ Assessor and Internal Verifier for NVQ Childcare and NVQ Playwork courses Training to Diversity and Inclusion on understanding play therapy Lecturing on a range of courses including NVQ Childcare,NVQ Playwork, CACHE Diploma,BTEC National Diploma and Certificate in Counselling Concepts. Working as a volunteer with Adult Literacy classes Teaching English as a foreign language Conferences – see Events page My experience of therapeutic work includes the following: Working as a play therapist for over 10 years across primary schools in Manchester and Tameside delivering individual play therapy, group work, parent child work, filial therapy and staff consultations. Working freelance as a play therapist for Manchester Diversity and Inclusion Working freelance for the Big Life Company providing parent child work My experience of supervision includes: Working as Project Supervisor for Calm Spaces for two and a half years providing both individual and group supervision to a team of staff including play therapists, a drama therapist and massage therapists Providing supervision to an art therapist and school counsellor both working in primary schools. Supervision and consultation for primary head teachers and other school staff. Working as a Clinical Supervisor on the Postgraduate Diploma in Play Therapy for Liverpool Hope University providing both individual and group supervision to play therapy trainees. My qualifications include the following: Intensive Filial Therapy Training Postgraduate Diploma in Play Therapy Certificate in Further Education Teaching MA Women’s Studies Certificate in Counselling Skills BA Modern Studies (Sociology) Diploma of Higher Education Internal Verifiers Award (D34) NVQ Assessor Award (D32,33) Montessori Nursery Foundation Certificate NNEB