"Children and Young People Interrupted-Unfinished Business in Art Therapy"

Pre lock down Young Minds informed us that a staggering 1 in 8 children aged between 5 and 19 has a diagnosable mental health condition but that only a ¼ had contact with mental health specialists in the past year, leaving ¾ unseen by specialists .Increasingly Art Therapists have been specialising in work with children, doing their bit to support with this crisis. This means that many were mid-process with children experiencing trauma, mental health, social communication and /or safeguarding issues before the safe therapeutic base was abruptly interrupted.

How do art therapists now “sit with” or resolve the anxiety provoking “unfinished business” they may have been left holding to ensure that their young clients children are “safe enough” during  lock down?
This seminar will revisit the pillars of safe working, safeguarding, information sharing, the unique role of image making and non-verbal disclosure within art therapy and will end with participants making a personal visual response to identify, resolve and transform unfinished business.

Pre Course Exercise - (45-60 minutes)
Take some time to think about  a child or young person that you were engaged with or about to start work with before the lockdown- take 45-60 minutes to make an image of the unfinished elements, feelings and concerns  that you have been left holding  from this child. The image can be any size, any materials, 2D or 3D to express the title “Unfinished Business” Please bring your work entitled “Unfinished Business” to the online seminar. Please also have some art materials at the ready for an experiential exercise within the seminar.

Biography
 
State Registered Consultant Art Psychotherapist, Parenting Practitioner and Lecturer, Mary Rose Brady has over 25 years’ experiencespecialisingin the impact of trauma in child and adolescent development.
Mary Rose’s belief  in the powerfully unique role that making art plays in trauma intervention began early in her career when co establishing the Post Graduate Art Psychotherapy course in the Netherlands she was involved in research projects in Asylum Seeker Centres assessing the impact of war on children’s drawing development.
During “the fall of the iron curtain” she was invited to present at a Governmental Conference in St Petersburg on the therapeutic use of art with traumatised populations. She continues to work with, support and advise charities on the therapeutic use of art with trauma and developmental delay in the UK and overseas
Mary Rose is a guest lecturer on trauma a child development at a number of Universities and Institutes including the University of Hertfordshire, the Institute of Arts in Education,the Anna Freud Centre and the British Association of Art Therapists.
Previously, Director of Operations and Lead advisor for Children and Young People’s Mental Health at the British Association of Art Therapists and Head of Parenting and Creative Therapies at Coram .Mary Rose is currently Clinical Director for Petra’s Place where she is responsible for leading the therapy team in designing and implementing innovative evidence based blendedintervention  for pre school children with developmental delay and autism.