Wildflower Play Therapy

05/06/2025

We are so proud of our Amy and her recent publication in The British Journal of Play Therapy! Congratulations on your achievement, Amy, so great to see your hard work recognised and this important research published. 🥳

I am proud to say my Masters research, 'Holding Space for Children's Humour: How is Humour used within Play and Child Therapy? A Scoping Review,' is at last, published. I am really proud of the work, and to have my name alongside Dr Natalie Hadiprodjo. You can read it in the British Jour...

03/03/2025

IMMEDIATE AVAILABILITY

That dreaded word: waitlist. We know how hard it is to hear that your child will have to wait for the support they need. That’s why we are always striving to reduce wait times and provide kids with the support they need when they need it. So, we are excited to announce that we have several appointments available for weekly Play Therapy with our newest team member, Amber:

“Hi, I’m Amber. I have a special interest in neurodivergence and neuro-affirming practice, and am neurodivergent myself. Within this I enjoy building children’s joy in play and capacity for play, which often supports their relationships with others and well-being. With my experience in educational settings, I also enjoy supporting children transitioning into school and with school related anxieties. By working alongside educators and families, I aim to facilitate the best environment possible for children’s education and care. ”

If you are interested in securing a Play Therapy appointment with Amber for your child, please reach out to us via email on info@wildflowerplaytherapy.com or by phoning 0406 311 254. If you would like more information on Play Therapy, please visit www.wildflowerplaytherapy.com.

07/02/2025

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL PLAY THERAPY WEEK 2025! 🥳

Day 7: Games, Cards, and Projective Resources in Play Therapy

⭐️ Fostering Positive Emotions: The enjoyment and shared experience of games can build trust and strengthen the therapeutic relationship.
⭐️ Exploring and Regulating Emotions: Games can evoke a range of emotions, such as anticipation, surprise, joy, frustration, or disappointment. These experiences provide opportunities to explore and develop emotional regulation skills in a safe and supportive environment.
⭐️ Developing Social Skills: Games often involve turn-taking, cooperation, negotiation, and conflict resolution. These interactions help develop social skills.
⭐️ Enhancing Communication: Games can encourage self-expression, listening, and both verbal and non-verbal communication. They can also provide a platform for practicing narrative skills and sharing personal experiences.
⭐️ Projection and Exploration: Games, cards and other therapeutic resources can serve as projective tools, allowing individuals to express and explore their thoughts, feelings, experiences, and worldview in a symbolic and non-threatening way.
⭐️ Promote Self-Expression: Games can spark conversation, and provide an entry point for exploration of feelings and experiences.

Play Therapy harnesses the natural language of childhood: Play. This week we will be sharing some of the resources we use that support children’s therapeutic growth within Play Therapy.
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06/02/2025

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL PLAY THERAPY WEEK 2025! 🥳

Day 6: Miniatures in Play Therapy

⭐️ Safety Through Metaphor: The miniature world creates a safe, symbolic space where children can explore and express their thoughts, feelings, and experiences indirectly and in a non-confrontational way.
⭐️ Develop Social Skills and Empathy: By creating and enacting narratives within the miniature world, children can explore different roles, relationships and social dynamics, developing a greater sense of self-awareness, understanding of the social dynamics and empathy.
⭐️ Cathartic Relief and Emotional Regulation: Miniatures can provide a safe outlet for expression of thoughts, feelings and experiences. Through the safety of the play, children can grow to understand and process their experiences, alongside practicing coping strategies and developing their emotional regulation.
⭐️ Therapeutic Expression Beyond Verbal Skills: By engaging with miniatures through play, children can communicate the complexities of their thoughts and feelings non-verbally, overcoming developmental limitations of verbal expression.
⭐️ Problem-Solving and Cognitive Development: The miniature environment encourages problem-solving and cognitive development, as children experiment with different scenarios and outcomes. By manipulating objects and creating narratives, they can develop critical thinking skills, enhance their creativity, and learn to approach challenges from multiple perspectives.

Play Therapy harnesses the natural language of childhood: Play. This week we will be sharing some of the resources we use that support children’s therapeutic growth within Play Therapy.

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05/02/2025

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL PLAY THERAPY WEEK 2025! 🥳

Day 5: Costume Play in Play Therapy

⭐️ Enhances Self-Understanding, Increases Personal Strengths and Develops Empathy: Costume play provides a safe space for children to explore different strengths, abilities and roles, promoting self-discovery and self-understanding. It also allows them to see things from the perspective of others, fostering empathy and social skills.
⭐️ Allows Stress Relief and Promotes Positive Emotions: Costume play offers a temporary escape from reality, where children can shed their everyday identity and become someone else entirely, encouraging stress relief and fostering feeling of joy, control and competence.
⭐️ Supports Catharsis and Mastery: Costume play empowers children to play out their experiences through the safety offered by the metaphor of play and allows children the freedom to rewrite the ending should they so choose, providing cathartic relief and mastery over experiences.

Play Therapy harnesses the natural language of childhood: Play. This week we will be sharing some of the resources we use that support children’s therapeutic growth within Play Therapy.

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04/02/2025

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL PLAY THERAPY WEEK 2025! 🥳

Day 4: Nurture Play in Play Therapy

⭐️ Repairing Attachment and Nurture Experiences: Children can role-play as the recipient of care, exploring their own needs for nurture and attachment, at times fulfilling gaps in their own experiences.
⭐️ Mastering Experiences: By reenacting experiences with nurture toys, children can gain a sense of control and mastery, with the flexibility to rewrite their narrative to a different, more healing story if they so desire.
⭐️ Reducing Fears and Anxiety: Nurture play can provide a forum for rehearsing experiences such as inoculations, surgical procedures, injuries, etc. helping to gain mastery, and reduce anxiety and fear.
⭐️ Enhancing Communication Skills: Children can use nurture play to listen to and respond to others both verbally and non-verbally, improving their communication skills.
⭐️ Developing Empathy: Children can develop a deeper understanding of others' feelings and needs, fostering empathy, compassion and healthy relationships.
⭐️ Building Self-Esteem: Successfully caring for others via nurture play can boost children's self-esteem and confidence.
⭐️ Promoting Problem-Solving Skills: Children can use nurture play to explore different solutions to problems and exercise their problem-solving skills.

Play Therapy harnesses the natural language of childhood: Play. This week we will be sharing some of the resources we use that support children’s therapeutic growth within Play Therapy.

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03/02/2025

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL PLAY THERAPY WEEK 2025! 🥳

Day 3: Aggressive Play in Play Therapy

Aggressive play, often misunderstood and discouraged, can play a vital role in healthy child development:

⭐️ Empathy, Communication and Social Skills Development: Through aggressive play, children practice listening to social cues, practice verbal and non-verbal communication and grow in their understanding of how their behaviour affects others. This fosters the development of empathy, communication skills and social skills.
⭐️ Self-Regulation and Self-Expression: Engaging in aggressive play allows children to express their emotions and experiences in a safe environment. This helps them develop self-understanding, creates an outlet for self expression and encourages the development of self-regulation skills.
⭐️ Moral Development: As children navigate the rules and boundaries of aggressive play, they develop a sense of safe versus unsafe, and right versus wrong, contributing to their moral development and social competence.
⭐️ Physical Development: Aggressive play often involves physical activity, promoting gross motor skills, strength, and coordination.

Play Therapy harnesses the natural language of childhood: Play. This week we will be sharing some of the resources we use that support children’s therapeutic growth within Play Therapy.

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02/02/2025

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL PLAY THERAPY WEEK 2025! 🥳

Day 2: Puppet Play in Play Therapy

⭐️ Enhance Communication and Social Skills: Puppet play allows children to practice verbal and nonverbal communication.
⭐️ Express Emotions and Experiences: Puppets provide a safe way for children to explore feelings and experiences that might be too overwhelming or scary to express directly.
⭐️ Develop Emotional Regulation: Through puppet play, children can learn to identify, understand, and regulate their emotions.
⭐️ Build Empathy and Understanding: By taking on different roles and perspectives through puppet play, children can develop a greater sense of empathy and understanding towards others.
⭐️ Promote Problem-Solving Skills: Puppet play can be used to explore and resolve conflicts, practice decision-making, and develop problem-solving strategies.
⭐️ Increase Self-Awareness: Through puppet play, children can gain a deeper understanding of their own thoughts, feelings, and behaviours.
⭐️ Reduce Anxiety and Stress: The playful and non-threatening nature of puppet play can help promote joy, humour and relationship and reduce anxiety, and cope with stress.

Play Therapy harnesses the natural language of childhood: Play. This week we will be sharing some of the resources we use that support children’s therapeutic growth within Play Therapy.

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01/02/2025

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL PLAY THERAPY WEEK 2025! 🥳

Play Therapy harnesses the natural language of childhood: Play. This week we will be sharing some of the resources we use that support children’s therapeutic growth within Play Therapy.

Day 1: Sand Play in Play Therapy

⭐️ Projection of Feelings: Sand play provides a space for children to project their emotions and experiences, allowing them to express themselves in a way that feels safe.
⭐️ Access to the Unconscious: The symbolic nature of sand play can provide access to unconscious thoughts, feelings, and experiences. This can facilitate a deeper understanding of the child's inner world and promote healing.
⭐️ Sensory Play and Construction: The tactile experience of manipulating sand can be deeply therapeutic; bridging gaps in childhood experiences of sensory play and supporting the development of emotional regulation. Building and creating with sand also fosters creativity, problem-solving skills, and fine motor skill development.
⭐️ Conceptualisation: Sand play allows children to externalise and represent their internal experiences in a concrete and tangible way. This can help them make sense of their thoughts and feelings and gain mastery over their experiences.

20/12/2024

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM WILDFLOWER PLAY THERAPY!

As 2024 comes to a close, we cannot help but think of all the remarkable kids we've met this year who've bravely taken hold of the metaphor of play to unpack their experiences, face their fears, grow their confidence, build their self-esteem, enhance their skills and discover more about who they are. We are so inspired by their courage, and we feel honoured to have met each and every one of them and be entrusted with their stories.

The Wildflower Play Therapy team will be taking a break from the 22nd of December until the 5th of January, with appointments resuming from the 6th of January. We hope you all have a safe and happy Christmas and New Year period, filled with many moments of connection, joy and growth. See you in 2025!

17/12/2024

STUDENT PLACEMENT - FREE THERAPY OPPORTUNITY! 🥳

Next year, we are delighted to be hosting Mali for her Humanistic Play Therapy placement. Mali is looking for several children to participate in therapy with her for the duration of her practicum. Please see below for more details on suitability and how to get in touch with Mali:

"Hello, I'm Mali! I am a social worker currently working with children in a therapeutic capacity, and I am also studying my Master’s in Child Play Therapy. On weekends, you can often catch me reading a book while watching some cricket. I also love going for beach walks and grabbing coffee with friends. If I could be any animal, I think I’d choose to be a meerkat, as they're social, enjoy working in groups, and are always curious to see what’s happening around them.

I will be starting a 14-week placement in humanistic play therapy at Wildflower Play Therapy in mid-February. This approach focuses on creating a safe and empathetic space where children can express themselves freely through play, allowing them to explore and process their emotions in a supportive and non-judgmental environment.

As this is a placement, the therapy will be offered free of charge, providing a wonderful opportunity for families interested in exploring play therapy. Ideally, I am looking for children aged 3 to 13 years who may benefit from this type of therapy, especially if they are experiencing challenges such as low self-esteem, anxiety, peer issues, or coping with life changes. This includes children who may be dealing with sleep disturbances, difficulties with emotional regulation, or significant feelings they may be experiencing.

I will be under the close supervision of experienced and registered play therapists throughout this process. If you or anyone you know might be interested, please feel free to reach out to me at s223432298@deakin.edu.au to discuss further. Thank you!"

02/12/2024

EXCITING NEWS!!! 🥳

We know the disappointment families feel when they hear the word 'waitlist', and so, we've been working hard to bring down wait times in order to provide timely support. That's why, after a long and rigorous search for a Registered Play Therapist who's training, skills and experience fit with our ongoing aim of providing high-quality therapeutic services, we'd like to introduce you to our newest team member, Amber Hall. Here's Amber:

"Hi, I’m Amber! I am very excited to be working with the team at Wildflower Play Therapy to support children and families in their unique journeys. My favourite thing about play therapy is the way we can hear, and honour, children’s voices in an extremely safe environment. It is an incredible experience to have a child and family share their worlds with you, and amazing to watch children’s play transform as they gain new skills, explore a range of emotions, and process experiences.
I come to play therapy from an education background, including working with a therapy dog in a school to support regulation and relationship building. I have my own assistance dog who embodies the power of playfulness to enhance wellbeing!"

To read more about Amber's qualifications, experience and areas of interest, head to https://www.wildflowerplaytherapy.com/amber-hall

If your child or family could benefit from the transformative therapeutic powers of play therapy, head to https://www.wildflowerplaytherapy.com/contact to reach out to us. We look forward to talking with you about your child's unique strengths and needs and how we might be able to help.