Faye Oakley Play Therapy

26/11/2025

🎒💛 Play Therapy & School Anxiety

School should feel safe — but for many children, it can feel overwhelming.
Changes in routine, social pressures, sensory overload, learning difficulties, or past experiences can all contribute to school-related anxiety.
Play Therapy offers gentle, child-led support to help children manage these big feelings.

✨ How Play Therapy Helps With School Anxiety:
• Builds emotional regulation — children learn to manage stress, worry and frustration through therapeutic play.
• Supports confidence & resilience — sessions help children feel more capable, brave and secure.
• Provides a safe space to explore fears — children express worries symbolically through toys, stories and creative play.
• Improves behaviour & focus in school — when anxiety reduces, children cope better with learning and social interactions.
• Strengthens coping skills — breathing, grounding, sensory tools and emotional language become part of their toolkit.
• Reduces separation anxiety — consistent, nurturing sessions support smoother transitions between home and school.
Anxious children don’t need pressure — they need support, connection and understanding.
Play Therapy offers a calm, therapeutic environment where children can make sense of their feelings at their own pace.
If you’re concerned about your child’s school anxiety, I’m here to help 💛
Faye Oakley | Play Therapy
📩 Message this page to discuss support for your child or school.

25/11/2025

💛 How Play Therapy Supports Children Healing from Trauma

Children don’t always have the words to describe scary or overwhelming experiences — but they do have play.
Play Therapy gives them a safe, therapeutic space to process emotions at their own pace, without pressure or fear of saying the “right” thing.
Here’s how Play Therapy helps children heal from trauma:
✨ Releases stored emotions
Trauma often gets held in the body. Play allows children to express fear, anger, sadness or confusion in a safe, controlled way.
✨ Rebuilds a sense of safety
Therapeutic play promotes predictability, calm, and connection — key foundations for recovery.
✨ Strengthens the brain
Repetitive, sensory play helps regulate the nervous system and supports healthy brain pathways affected by trauma.
✨ Restores control & confidence
Children make choices in sessions, helping them regain a sense of power and trust in themselves.
✨ Nurtures emotional resilience
Through symbolic play, children process what happened in a way their brain can understand.
Trauma can be overwhelming — but children don’t have to face it alone.
Play Therapy offers gentle, evidence-based support to help them feel safe, understood, and able to move forward.
If you’d like to talk about whether Play Therapy could support your child, please get in touch 💛
Faye Oakley | Play Therapy
📩 Message this page to find out more.

24/11/2025

🧠🌈 The Neuroscience Behind Play Therapy 🌈🧠

Did you know that play is one of the most powerful ways to support a child’s developing brain?
Neuroscience shows that during play:
🧩 The brain forms new neural connections
Play activates multiple brain regions at once — helping children process emotions, learn problem-solving, and build resilience.
💛 The limbic system (emotional centre) calms
Child-led, safe play helps reduce stress chemicals and increases feelings of safety — essential for emotional regulation.
🌿 The prefrontal cortex grows stronger
This part of the brain is responsible for impulse control, planning, attention, and decision-making. Play strengthens it naturally.
🎨 Symbolic play supports trauma processing
Children communicate through symbols and metaphor in play — allowing them to express feelings they can’t yet put into words.
In Play Therapy, we use the science of play to help children:
✔ Feel safe
✔ Express emotions
✔ Develop coping skills
✔ Build confidence
✔ Heal from difficult experiences
Play isn’t “just fun” — it’s brain-building, healing, and essential.
🌈 Faye Oakley Play Therapy
Child-centred • Neuroscience-informed • PTUK accredited
📩 Message to enquire or join the waiting list.

22/11/2025

Play is so much more than fun — it’s how children explore their emotions, work through worries, and make sense of their experiences.
In Play Therapy, children are given the space to:
✨ Express themselves safely
✨ Build confidence and resilience
✨ Develop emotional understanding
✨ Strengthen problem-solving and creativity
Through play, their inner world becomes visible — and healing becomes possible.
If your child is finding things difficult emotionally or behaviourally, Play Therapy can offer gentle, child-led support grounded in evidence and empathy.
🌿 Faye Oakley Play Therapy
PTUK-aligned • Child-centred • Trauma-informed
📩 Message me to enquire or join my waiting list

21/11/2025

🌿 Why PTUK Standards Matter in Play Therapy 🌿
When you choose a PTUK-registered Play Therapist, you’re choosing safe, evidence-based, and child-centred care.
PTUK standards ensure that every therapist works with:
✔ Accredited training grounded in child development and neuroscience
✔ Clinical governance, including supervision and ongoing assessment
✔ Robust safeguarding to protect every child
✔ Evidence-based practice proven to support emotional and behavioural wellbeing
This means your child receives support that is structured, monitored, and held to the highest professional standards.
A safe space.
A trained therapist.
A therapeutic process that works. 💛
🌈 Faye Oakley Play Therapy
PTUK-aligned • Child-led • Evidence-supported
📩 Message me for availability or school contracts

20/11/2025

✨ “Play is the highest form of research.” — Albert Einstein ✨
Children explore, experiment and make sense of their world through play.
In Play Therapy, this natural curiosity becomes a powerful route to emotional healing.
Through play, children can:
🧩 Express feelings they can’t put into words
🎨 Work through worries or difficult experiences
🌱 Build confidence, resilience and emotional understanding
💛 Feel truly heard in a safe, accepting space
Play isn’t “just play” —
It’s how children communicate, process, and grow.
If your child is finding things challenging emotionally, socially or behaviourally, Play Therapy can offer gentle, evidence-based support.
🌈 Faye Oakley Play Therapy
PTUK-aligned • Child-led • Evidence-supported
📩 Message me to enquire or book a consultation

19/11/2025

“Play is the language of Childhood”

When children don’t yet have the words to explain how they feel, play becomes their voice.
Through play, children can express big emotions, make sense of their experiences, and feel truly understood — safely and at their own pace.
In Play Therapy, toys become words.
Stories become feelings.
And the playroom becomes a space where healing begins. 💛
If you’re supporting a child who seems overwhelmed, anxious, withdrawn, or struggling with behaviour, Play Therapy can help them feel seen, heard, and supported.
📩 Message me to enquire
🧸 PTUK-aligned practice
🌈 Faye Oakley Play Therapy

15/10/2025

05/10/2025

Inside Parenting 💗

01/10/2025

Oh dear!! New obsession! 2 more puppets for my toolkit….. and more on the way

26/09/2025

Somatic Experiencing International & The Embody Lab 💛

26/09/2025

The Therapist Parent 💓