Location: Sligo
Telephone: 0830107543
Email: emmajmcbride@gmail.com
Qualifications:
Post Graduate Diploma Non-Directive Play Therapy (University of Surrey, London) 2005
BA (Ed) English and Primary Education (KAC, Winchester, UK) 1997
Personal Bio:
After being a primary teacher in UK for six years, Emma requalified as a Play Therapist in 2005. Emma was struck by the number of children unable to access the curriculum due to emotional distress caused by a wide range of different experiences, including parental divorce and bereavement. From 2005, Emma set up and helped to run Play Therapy services in several London Primary schools while working for The Catholic Children’s Society. Aware of the challenges teachers and school staff face day to day, Emma offered support, supervision and training to schools to enable them to become more child and family focused, while at the same time finding best ways to support the children most at need. Employing a systemic approach through Play Therapy brought about positive change for the children, their families and the schools as a whole.
Emma relocated to rural East Hampshire in 2010, where she and her Sligo-born husband raised their two children. Here, Emma established her own clinical practice, taking on private referrals from individual families and Local Authorities. Emma also worked part time for a team of child therapists at ‘Play Therapy Services’ based in Weybridge, Surrey. Emma completed an additional training in Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (DDP) in 2022 and is now a fully certified practitioner. This allows Emma to draw on her experience of Play Therapy in schools as well as her interest in working with looked after and adopted children and their families. Emma’s clinical practice is rooted in a PACE-ful approach, always child and family centred and involving every agency who know the child.
Emma and her family now live in Sligo, on the Wild Atlantic coast, and Emma is keen to continue working with children, families and professionals in and around the area.
Area of Interest:
Emma’s special interest is working with families experiencing attachment difficulties due to trauma prior to being placed in care or adoption.
Emma uses a variety of different therapy models she is qualified in to help meet the needs of the children and families she works with. Depending on the reason for referral, Emma will incorporate non-directive Play Therapy, Theraplay-based techniques, Therapeutic Life Story work and DDP.
Additional Trainings:
Theraplay Level 1 2010, Theraplay Level 2 – 2013
Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy – fully certified practitioner – 2022