Play & Creative Therapy Bundaberg

22/09/2025

Options Day is TODAY! Head to the Recreational Precinct Main Pavilion on today (23 September) from 9am–1pm for a free community expo showcasing services, support, and opportunities for people with disability in Bundaberg. With over 60 stalls, hands-on activities, entertainment, food and drink, plus a quiet sensory hour and chill-out zone, it’s a chance to connect, learn, and celebrate inclusion.

More info – https://widebaykids.com.au/options-day-bundaberg-2025/

21/09/2025

🎨 This weekend’s project thanks to TJC Painting & Decorating✨

A pop of colour in our reception & waiting area 🍃

I wanted the space to feel a little more warm, welcoming, and just a little bit brighter for the families who walk through our doors. A space for parents and caregivers to retreat while their child is in session … a space just for you. 🩵

What do you think of the new look? 😍

19/09/2025

Every child is different, and no single approach can meet all their needs. That’s why our work is deeply integrative.

We draw from varied counselling, psychotherapy, developmental, play therapy, creative therapy, and systemic family therapy approaches to respond to the child in front of us, not just the technique.

With neurodivergent children and families, this often means walking alongside them in a holistic way, supporting emotional wellbeing, authentic social navigation, trauma healing and relational safety, mental health and nervous system care, sensory regulation, problem-solving and planning, identity and self-advocacy, and family relationships.

What shapes our practice is not only professional training, but also lived experience. Many of us are neurodivergent ourselves or deeply connected to ND life through our families. This doesn’t make us “better” - it simply means we understand on a human level what it’s like to navigate overwhelm, masking, distress, and also the joy, spark, and creativity of the ND way of being.

We are always learning, evolving, and walking our own journeys too. 🍃

For us, therapy isn’t just about the methods or approaches - it’s about meeting our clients needs with humility, presence, and authenticity.

No Wait List - Immediate Capacity
www.playcreative.com.au

18/09/2025

Amazing advice from Maggie Dent. Go gently, go kindly 💖

18/09/2025

Theres a familar pattern emerging when I talk to parents.

Parents are trying to follow all the modern approaches - gentle parenting, conscious parenting, respectful parenting, trauma-informed parenting. They’re scrolling social media, reading the posts, listening to the podcasts, absorbing the advice. But the messages are mixed, often contradictory, and the pressure to get it right is utterly overwhelming.

So many parents end up believing they have to be perfectly calm, endlessly regulated, and somehow flawless before they’re even worthy of showing up for their child … and this is simply not true!

So I want to pause here and share this with you …

… your child is not looking for a perfect parent. They are looking for 𝑦𝑜𝑢.

A safe, predictable, authentic 𝑦𝑜𝑢.

The parent who is real, and shows up honestly, who sometimes wobbles, who sometimes needs repair … but who always, 𝑎𝑙𝑤𝑎𝑦𝑠 returns with steadiness, and the willingness to truly see them.

Authenticity is what builds trust.
Authenticity is what provides predictability.
Authenticity is what creates safety.
Authenticity is what tells your child, 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑡 ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒, 𝑏𝑒𝑐𝑎𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝐼 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑘𝑒𝑒𝑝 𝑠ℎ𝑜𝑤𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑢𝑝 𝑎𝑠 𝑚𝑦𝑠𝑒𝑙𝑓, over and over and over again.

Children don’t need flawless parents who master every modern approach. They need safety in your humanness, in your authentic connection, in your capacity to repair after rupture, in your choosing of presence over perfection.

💭 So I wonder… what would shift for you, and for your child, if you let go of all the pressure and expectations to be the perfect parent … and allowed yourself to be deeply, authentically 𝑦𝑜𝑢?

17/09/2025

17/09/2025

Book delivery day 📚✨

This little stack feels like soul food to me. Each book represents a step in shifting how we think about autism, language, co-regulation, and neurodiversity.

I’ve read all of these before, whether through Kindle or Audible, but there’s something different about holding the real thing in your hands isn’t it? The weight, the pages, the space to pause on a sentence that really lands.

Sometimes we need the ease of digital. But sometimes, nothing beats the tangible reminder on your desk, bookshelf, or bedside table, that quietly nudges you to keep learning, unlearning, and growing. 🌱

My books are sacred to me. They’re little companions on this constantly evolving journey that remind me of how much possibility still lies ahead. ✨

~ Kara, certified book nerd 🤓📖

17/09/2025

✨ New Openings Available ✨

Jo has extended her week and now has extra session times open for Play & Creative Arts Counselling.
💫 No waitlist – immediate start available!

🌱 A gentle and creative therapeutic space for children, pre-teens, and teens.

📞 Contact us today to secure a spot before they fill up.

Go to www.playcreative.com.au to find our Referral Intake Form.

16/09/2025

If you work with children in the mental health space and have been considering Play Therapy training, I can’t recommend QIPT (Queensland Institute of Play Therapy) enough. Still one of the best trainings I have ever done and absolutely love the support and ongoing training opportunities I continue to receive today!

Sarah’s workshops weave together solid clinical foundations with a deeply relational, practitioner- and child-centred, neuro-affirming approach that truly reflects best practice.

🌈💛🌱 Our amazing Counsellor Jo is on the QIPT journey this year, and we’re so excited to see the growth and learning she’ll bring back into our practice.

✨ Join QIPT’s Open Night tonight and hear directly from Sarah and the team.

Kara 💛y

Considering Play Therapy? Join TODAY QIPT Open Night on Wednesday, September 17, 2025, at 6:00 PM AEST on Zoom!

Our founder, Sarah Harwood, will be online to answer your questions and share insights on our Play Therapy Workshops. It's the perfect opportunity to learn more about how we can help you start your journey.

Register and join us here:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89795828369?pwd=kZX3M1JnEGvrCQXjawwoZaF19lROza.1

We can't wait to see you there!

16/09/2025

🌿 In the playroom, it’s never really about toys.

The heart of play therapy lies in attunement… to the child’s nervous system, to our own, and to the rhythmic dance that unfolds between them.

It’s in the energy and intensity of the play. The storm and the calm. The way a child enters, stays, retreats, or returns. It’s in their comfort and discomfort, their pauses and persistence, their transitions between one play theme and the next.

As therapists, we are not asking, “Can they play with this toy?” We are listening for, “What are they showing me through how they play?”

The toys are simply tools. The real story is in the relationship, in the co-regulation, the nervous system conversation, and the back-and-forth communication that has nothing to do with words and everything to do with presence.

Play is never “just play.” It’s where children begin finding safety in authentically attuned connection.

14/09/2025

✨ And thats a wrap! ✨

What an incredible experience diving deep into Synergetic Play Therapy Institute training with the amazing Lisa Dion.

Our journey into our own bodies is a process. SPT is an invitation to come home. Until next time 💜