PolyPlay Therapy Hub

10/01/2026

✨ Social Group Success! ✨

Yesterday’s social group session at Ascot Vale Library was such a meaningful and positive experience. The children did an incredible job navigating a shared community space, building confidence, and connecting with one another through play.

During the session, children practised and developed:
📚 Sharing space in a public environment — staying with the group, noticing others, and respecting boundaries
🤝 Social interaction skills — observing peers, playing alongside others, and gently joining shared play
🔄 Turn-taking and flexibility — adapting ideas, waiting, and responding to changes in play
💬 Communication — using words, gestures, and body language to express needs and ideas
🧠 Emotional regulation — recognising big feelings, taking breaks, and using movement and play to settle their bodies
🌱 Confidence and independence — making choices, leading play, and trying something new at their own pace

What stood out most was seeing children move from watching and warming up, to engaging, laughing, and connecting — all within a supportive, trauma-informed group setting. These experiences help build the foundations for social confidence, school readiness, and emotional wellbeing.

Thank you to our wonderful families and to Ascot Vale Library for providing such a welcoming community space. We’re looking forward to our next group 💛

08/01/2026

A Letter to Parents

“Therapy works because it creates conditions, not guarantees.”

Therapy is not a mechanical process.
(Do X → get Y.)
It is an ecological one.

Nothing is forced.
Nothing is promised.
Change is invited.

Therapy is like tending soil, not fixing a machine

You don’t “make” a plant grow.

You:

Prepare the soil

Ensure water and light

Protect it from harm

Allow time

Whether growth happens today, next month, or much later is not fully in anyone’s control.

In therapy, we create:

Emotional safety

Relational consistency

Attuned presence

Permission for play, regression, messiness, and silence

Growth emerges when the nervous system is ready.

The nervous system cannot be commanded

You can’t tell a child:

“Calm down”

“Feel safe”

“Trust me”

“Use your skills now”

Safety is experienced, not instructed.

Therapy creates conditions where:

The body learns it can settle

Co-regulation becomes possible

The child discovers regulation through a relationship

There is no guarantee of when —
but there is a strong possibility of if the conditions are held.

Play is the doorway, not the destination

We don’t use play to extract outcomes.
We use play to:

Externalise inner states

Practise power and agency

Revisit unmet needs safely

integrate sensory and emotional experience

The breakthrough moment is often:

Unplanned

Subtle

Noticed only in hindsight

Because it wasn’t engineered —
It was allowed.

Guarantees create pressure; conditions create safety

When therapy promises outcomes:

Children feel evaluated

Parents feel anxious

Therapists feel performative

Pressure activates defensive systems, not healing ones.

Conditions quietly say:

“You don’t need to perform.
You don’t need to be different today.
You are welcome exactly as you are.”

This is where real change happens.

Change is often indirect

Some of the most meaningful therapeutic shifts show up:

At home, not in the playroom

Weeks after a “quiet” session

In relationships, not behaviours

In capacity, not compliance

Conditions allow integration —
Not just symptom reduction.

Especially true for trauma and neurodivergence

Traumatised and neurodivergent nervous systems are:

Protective

Adaptive

Context-sensitive

They don’t respond well to:

Linear plans

Rigid expectations

“Skills first” models

They respond to:

Predictability

Relational safety

Rermission to be as they are

Therapy doesn’t override the system.
It befriends it.

15/12/2025

💛 To our community 💛

Our hearts are with everyone affected by the tragic events at Bondi. We are holding the victims, their families, first responders, and the wider community in our thoughts during this deeply distressing time.

Events like this can bring up big feelings for both children and adults—fear, confusion, sadness, or a sense of unease. Please know that these reactions are valid, and support is available.

In play therapy, we believe in the power of connection, safety, and compassionate care. If you or your child are finding this difficult to process, gentle, trauma-informed support can help restore a sense of calm and security.

We stand with our community in care, kindness, and solidarity. 🤍

09/12/2025

I didn’t realize how afraid I’d become of silence until one afternoon when my phone died and I sat on my bed with nothing to scroll, nothing to check, nothing to perform. Within seconds, my brain started itching for distraction, emails, notifications, noise, anything. That uncomfortable moment made me reach for Sruthi S Kuma’s The Lost Art of Doing Nothing, and I’m grateful I did, because this book doesn’t just talk about stillness; it gently teaches you how to feel safe in it again.

Sruthi writes with a softness that feels like someone placing a warm hand on your shoulder. She doesn’t shame you for hustling, or for being overwhelmed, or for constantly needing stimulation. Instead, she guides you back toward something we’ve all forgotten: the quiet, unhurried parts of ourselves we abandoned in the name of productivity. This book isn’t about laziness or escape but about reclaiming moments where you get to breathe, reconnect, and simply be human. By the time you finish, you don’t just understand stillness, you crave it.

4 Lessons That Stay With You:

1. Doing nothing isn’t wasted time, it’s repair time.
Sruthi explains that your mind, like any other living thing, needs moments of rest to reset, process, and heal. Stillness is not a pause in life; it’s part of living well.

2. You can only hear your intuition when the world quiets down.
Constant noise drowns out your inner compass. When you allow pockets of silence, your real desires, fears, and ideas finally rise to the surface.

3. Rest is a discipline, not an accident.
If you don’t intentionally create room for stillness, the world will fill every empty space for you. Scheduling quiet moments is not indulgent, it’s essential.

4. Slowing down helps you savor the ordinary beauty you’ve been rushing past.
A cup of tea, a sunset, a conversation, even your own breath becomes more meaningful when you’re not mentally sprinting through your day.

If you feel constantly “on,” constantly overwhelmed, or constantly guilty for resting, The Lost Art of Doing Nothing feels like a warm permission slip back to yourself. It doesn’t tell you to escape the world, it teaches you how to live in it with more presence, softness, and joy.

BOOK: https://amzn.to/3KKtimC

Enjoy the audio book with FREE trial using the link above. Use the link to register on audible and start enjoying!

06/11/2025

Lately I’ve been reflecting on the book He’s Not Lazy, and it connects so deeply with what I see in Play Therapy, but also in my own home. As a mum of two boys, I notice how easily “I don’t want to” or “I don’t care” can appear on the surface. But underneath, there is often something tender — a worry about not being good enough, or the fear of trying and failing. It reminded me how important it is to look beneath the behaviour, rather than taking it at face value.

In the playroom, boys often choose superhero play, building, power themes, battles — not because they don’t care, but because play gives them a safe space to feel capable, strong, and in control. And at home, I see the same: when I slow down, reflect feelings, and stay close, my boys soften, and their willingness to try returns.

Motivation grows in children when they feel safe, not judged. When they know they can try and still be loved in the trying.

Sometimes the most healing message we can offer is:
I see your effort.
You don’t have to be perfect here.
You are safe to try.

21/09/2025

Hello!
My name is Cecile and I am a registered play therapist.
I’m excited to share that I’m currently expanding my days in the Moonee Ponds/Brunswick/Essendon/Keilor area 🌿 If you’ve ever been curious about play therapy or think it could support your child and family, I’m open to any questions and inquiries. Please feel free to reach out — I’d love to chat and share more about how play therapy works. 💜

21/09/2025

Let's get ready for SCHOOL 💪

01/07/2025

I’m feeling terrified, heartbroken 💔 my hearts goes out to all the families and children that might be involved 😢

21/04/2025

We have to know better to do better by our children. ♥

21/04/2025

19/04/2025

To our dearest PolyPlay Therapy friends and families, Happy Easter!
I’m so looking forward to return to the playroom after the school holiday and PLAY, PLAY, PLAT!

20/03/2025

It's not everyday you get to meet with a Senator to discuss the importance of Play Therapy for Australian children!

In our advocacy of Play Therapy, Natalie Scira Playroom Therapy
and I had the pleasure of meeting with Senator Steph Hodgins-May to raise our concerns that children and families are still not able to choose evidence-based Play Therapy [delivered by tertiary trained Play Therapists] as part of mental health (Medicare) or disability/developmental (NDIS) services

We shared that we would like to see Play Therapy included in the 2025 budget for Medicare and Play Therapy to be recognized as an NDIS support (paid at an allied health professional rate)

If you are an MP or Senator and would like to hear more about Play Therapy and show your support for this emerging profession there are Registered Play Therapists (RPT™) and Registered Play Therapist-Supervisors (RPT-S™) in all states and territories who would gladly give you a tour of their playroom or introduce you to families who have directly benefited from this specialized support. Let me know if you would like to be introduced to a Play Therapist in your electorate!

Note: RPT™ and RPT-S™ are registered with the Australasia Pacific Play Therapy Association (APPTA), who are members of the Allied Health Professions Australia (AHPA) and National Alliance of Self Regulating Health Professions (NASRHP)



Catherine King Amanda Rishworth MP Nick Champion MP Erin Thompson MP Leon Bignell MP Olivia Savvas MP Kate Thwaites MP Kate Thwaites MP Rhiannon Pearce MP