DREAM together, Cambridge (2025)

03/11/2025

FROM VISION TO GROWTH ✨

DREAM together started just over two years ago with a clear vision to support individuals and organisations with life’s serious stuff in a creative and therapeutic way.

The need is significant and our vision remains the same. As with any period of growth, we now need focus and clarity.

I recently spent an afternoon with Steven Creamer, DREAM’s photographer and a trusted and critical friend for more than a decade.

Meeting with Steven was a powerful reminder of how far DREAMs vision has come and how much possibility lies ahead.

As DREAM moves into the next year, we are excited to refine our focus, strengthen our collective offer, and respond to the growing needs within our community.

I feel emotional about how far we have come and genuinely excited about what lies ahead.

Taking time to pause and reflect on our vision, values, and areas for growth is so important.

Steven Creamer Photography

28/10/2025

LET US MAKE ROOM FOR THE UNSAID.

Why Shadowy Images Belong in the Therapy Room. 🖤

In the therapy room, there are times when words simply cant be found. This is often a sign that something important is stirring beneath the surface.

Trauma, emotional overwhelm or deep relational pain can leave people unable to speak. Not because they do not want to, but because language is out of reach.

Here are some reasons why this happens, and why having a range of images that allow for shadowy or layered feelings to be expressed is so important in therapeutic work.

WHY WORDS CAN BE HARD TO ACESS 🙊

• Trauma can affect the brain’s language centres, making speech difficult or impossible.

• Early experiences may be stored in the body rather than in words, especially if they happened before language developed.

• Intense emotions such as shame, grief or fear can overwhelm the system and lead to dissociation or silence.

• Cultural or relational silencing may leave people without the language to name their pain.

• Sometimes words feel too small, too sharp or too linear to hold what is inside.

WHY SHADOWY IMAGES BELONG IN THE THERAPY ROOM 🖤

• They offer a bridge when words are not available.

• They allow the indidvdual to express complexity and contradiction without needing to explain.

• They invite metaphor, projection and meaning making in a safe and creative way.

• They support emotional regulation and embodied processing through visual engagement.

• They honour the unspeakable and give form to what has long been hidden or held in silence.

A Gentle Invitation; If you are a therapist, carer or practitioner, consider curating a collection of evocative images for your space. Not just the bright and hopeful ones, but those that hold shadow, ambiguity and emotional depth.

Let us make room for the unsaid. 🤲

23/10/2025

CELEBRATING ADOPTION WEEK 🎉

ADOPTION AND THE WORK OF HEALING RELATIONSHIPS.

“It takes a village to raise a child, and a village of love to heal generations.”

As we mark Adoption Week, I’m reflecting on the beauty and complexity that live side by side in every adoption story.

Adoption is not only about new beginnings. It is about holding the whole story.

Each Journey begins somewhere, often with loss and grief for the love and safety that were not given.

Beneath every story lies a longing to belong, to be safe, seen, and unconditionally loved.

Adoption Week is about celebrating the present while honouring each child’s history, memories, and connections with care, curiosity, and compassion.

Over 18 years of walking alongside care experienced children and families, and 7 years commissioned by the Adoption Support Fund, my heart continues to expand with the love I witness and the delicate dance of intimacy that unfolds.

For those who have lived through relational trauma, love can feel both essential and terrifying. The dance of intimacy is learning that love can be safe, consistent, and real, one patient step at a time.

Adoptive families hold both the grief of what was lost and the hope of what can grow. This is tender, complex, sacred work.

Children and young people who have faced profound adversity often become our deepest mirrors and teachers.

They remind us of our shared humanity, and that we too are shaped and healed through relationship.

Hope is not the absence of struggle.

It is the quiet belief that healing is still possible.

To every family, child, and professional who continues to show up with love, care, and compassion, thank you.

You are the heartbeat of healing, helping life stories unfold with truth, belonging, and hope.

📷 Steven Creamer

20/10/2025

SUPERVISION AS ESSENTIAL AS PUTTING YOUR SEATBELT ON.

Supervision: A Non Negotiable for Safe Practice📚

Supervision is not just a professional requirement.

For me, it is as essential as putting on your seatbelt before a journey.

It is the fuel that powers safe, conscious, and reflective practice.

In my work, supervision is a lifeline. It helps me:

🌿 Notice blind spots I might otherwise miss

🌿 Explore projections, transference, countertransference, and parallel processes

🌿 Stay grounded in relational integrity and ethical care

🌿 Reflect on how I show up for others and for myself

🌿 Deepens my clinical practice, resulting in safer, conscious and positive outcomes for children, families and organisations.

Supervision is not a luxury. It is a core part of trauma-informed, accountable practice

As essential as putting on your seatbelt, not just for safety, but for wellbeing and sustainability.

Let us normalise supervision as a space for growth, repair, and professional nourishment.

Not just a tick box, but a relational anchor.

🌿 What does supervision mean to you?

18/10/2025

EMBODIMENT IN DRAMATHERAPY

HOW OUR OWN HEALING AS THERAPISTS & HEALING PRACTITIONERS DEEPENS THE SPACE WE HOLD FOR OTHERS 🌿

My deep commitment to embodiment is something I hold with care. It is an ongoing practice that supports my own healing and strengthens the space I hold for others.

Embodiment is about coming home to ourselves, reconnecting with the sensations, emotions, and wisdom held within the body.

When we experience trauma, the body often carries what the mind cannot fully process.

Embodied practices invite us to listen, move, and express what words alone may struggle to reach.

In Dramatherapy, embodiment is at the heart of the work. It helps to release held tension, deepen self awareness, and integrate experiences that were once fragmented.

On my own healing journey, embodiment has been transformative, particularly through 5 Rhythms, a movement practice that allows me to process emotion through dance, rhythm, and flow.

It reminds me how much wisdom the body holds when we learn to listen. 🤲

For therapists, investing in our own personal therapeutic work is essential.

We must be grounded in our own process to hold space for the complex dynamics that arise in the therapy room.

Today, let us take a moment to celebrate the therapists and healing practitioners who are doing the real gritty inner work.👣

The British Association of Dramatherapists

17/10/2025

TODAY IS WORLD 🌎 TRAUMA DAY ❤️

This image reminds me of the importance of Containment, Connection, Compassion and Curiosity, for ourselves, each other, and the world.

Even in the shadow of trauma, there are brighter days ahead. We must hold onto a hope for a better tomorrow.

Healing grows through consistency, care and connection.

The impact of trauma touches us all, but so does our capacity for compassion and care.

❤️ Containment, Create safe spaces in your body, home, and relationships.

❤️ Connection, Healing happens in safe relationships. Reach out, listen deeply, and nurture spaces and faces where hearts feel safe and can rest and be seen.

❤️ Compassion, Begin with yourself. Small acts of care create ripples of healing.

❤️ Curiosity, asking “What happened?” instead of “What’s wrong?” Curiosity softens shame and invites understanding.

Today, Let’s keep holding our own and each other’s hearts with care and compassion. 🤲

16/10/2025

CELEBRATING DRAMATHERAPY WEEK 🎉

Using Masks to Explore Anger in a Safe and Tolerable Way.

In dramatherapy, masks offer a powerful way to explore what is often hidden. They give shape and voice to feelings that have been suppressed or parts of the self that have been kept hidden.

Expressing the angry part of the self can feel risky, but using a mask provides a safe space for understanding, transformation, and healing.

Carla*, who had a history of suppressing her anger and often slipped into people pleasing to feel safe and accepted, painted a mask she called her anger. This allowed her to see and express her feelings without shame or fear of judgment.

For the first time, her anger was witnessed. Over time, she became calmer at home and more expressive. Not because the anger disappeared, but because it was finally seen.

When Anger Was Seen 🖌

She had hidden her anger, buried in shame,
Afraid to feel it, afraid to name.
Cut off inside, she learned to please,
Keeping the peace, but never at ease.
Then through a mask, her anger spoke,
And was witnessed, she began, at last, to feel some hope.

The British Association of Dramatherapists

***Pen names are used and clinical examples are composites drawn from multiple experiences to protect confidentiality.

15/10/2025

THE HEALING POWER OF THE DRAMATHERAPY SPACE.

A REHEARSAL FOR LIFE.

Dramatherapy offers a rehearsal space for life. A place to explore roles, try on different ways of being and express emotions safely. To witness and be witnessed. To frame and reframe

Below are some examples of how the therapy space may be used as a rehearsal for life; .

🌿 Laura felt silenced in a personal relationship. Members of the group, gently spoke words of strength on her behalf. Though she could not voice her truth in that moment, she witnessed other ways of being and something shifted.

💁‍♀️ Rosa, a mother distressed by how her child’s support needs were handled at football, used puppets to rehearse what she wanted to say to the coaches. Imagining their responses helped ease her anxiety and gave her confidence to speak up.

🐦‍🔥 In a sand tray session, Marty a teenager, placed objects to represent his birth mother and his anger. One object tried to burn the mother figure. The therapist reflected this back, allowing Marty to express deep emotions safely and symbolically.

Dramatherapy also draws on psychodrama and playback theatre. Psychodrama invites individuals to step into roles from their own lives past present or imagined to express emotions gain insight and rehearse new responses.

Playback theatre allows personal stories to be shared and reflected back through improvised performance offering validation perspective and collective meaning making.

Both approaches enrich the therapeutic space by making the invisible visible, giving form to feelings, voice to experience and rehearsal to transformation.

This Dramatherapy Week let us honour the spaces where rehearsal becomes real and healing begins.

The British Association of Dramatherapists

*Pen names used.

*The clinical examples presented are composites drawn from multiple experiences to protect confidentiality.

📷 Steven Creamer

13/10/2025

IT'S DRAMATHERAPY WEEK 🎉

keep an eye out this week for posts, stories, and insights from DREAM together celebrating the power of dramatherapy.

What is Dramatherapy?

Dramatherapy is an evidence based physcotherapy that uses story, movement, play, role, and imagination to support healing, expression, and growth.

It works with both the conscious and unconscious, engaging body and mind to foster insight, connection, and transformation.

Who is it for?

Children, young people, and adults seeking a creative space to explore feelings, build confidence, and work through challenges that can present from traumatic or adverse experiences.

It can support with attachment, relational experiences, emotional regulation, identity, learning, behaviour, and meaning making.

Why it helps?

Trauma can fragment the sense of self. Dramatherapy offers a way back to self, creating a space to witness, be witnessed and integrate.

In group settings, it supports collective healing, using embodiment and relational work to restore connection, voice, and agency.

Through dramatherapy, people reconnect with themselves and others, and can experience growth and hope. ☺️

📷

The British Association of Dramatherapists

12/10/2025

DREAM BIG CONFERENCE 🌱

A few reflections from what was a truly special day.

The aim was to offer something beyond the concept of trauma informed practice, to create an experience where people could safely begin to feel, not just think, about what it means.

My key takeaways:

Dr Lisa Cherry, the Queen herself. Her story, strength and heart for this work is inspiring and deeply moving. Thank you, Lisa. Your talk on belonging, mattering and liminality stayed with me and led to a profound experience later in the week, a moment of loss, aliveness and healing within a community of 70 dancers.

DR KAREN TREISMAN, what a professional and what a journey. Karen, your heart for hope and those sparkles shine through everything you do.

The TICS Team, I am so proud of us. A true reflection of what a trauma informed team is: thinking minds, safe hands and open hearts.

Workshops, so many experiences to experience. I facilitated two workshops. One explored the Sand Tray Method, based on Dr Debbie Amas’ research. The feedback was “a revelation,” “wow,” and “fascinating.” A creative tool for deeper reflection in our work. Keep an eye out for the graphics on this workshop, from our talented illustrator Emma.

The second workshop, The Healing Power of Collective and Somatic Approaches, explored in real time, the wisdom of the body and the importance of community. It led beautifully into the Collaboration Choir with Carrie, a powerful reminder of connection, voice and belonging in action.

So many stories and experiences were shared in the room. I feel lucky to have connected with so many of you on the day and since. May we continue to come together as a collective of hope, taking trauma informed practice beyond the conference and into the world.

Let OUR Light shine on 🫶

Keep an eye out for more blogs, illustrations and photos of the day via our TICS pages.

TICS (Trauma Informed Consultancy Services Ltd.)

07/10/2025

Kinship Carers, We See You 💛

This week we celebrate the incredible Kinship Carers, family and friends who lovingly step in to care for children when they need it most.

As an associate of Trauma Informed Consultancy Agency, I feel deeply grateful to have held a masterclass tonight for almost 100 carers, creating a space where they could feel seen, heard and connected.

The need is great!

We reflected on the journey into kinship care, the hidden grief, divided loyalties and the importance of offering safety and repair.

We explored caring for a child’s heart while learning to care for your own, leading from the inside out and honouring the quiet strength it takes to keep showing up.

The feedback from carers has already been moving: “This is just what I needed tonight. Thank you.”

Some said the relaxing exercises were, "Wow", emotional and soothing, others felt heard and seen, and many valued connecting, sharing and expressing with others who understand their journey.

Here is a Poem we shared...

Showing Up with Love: A Kinship Carer's Journey 🌿

" You did not plan for this, but you stepped in with love. Some days carry quiet grief, other days reveal a strength you did not know you had.

You may feel torn between family, unsure of your role or exhausted.

But you are not alone!

Kinship is a community that understands and walks beside you.

Let this be a moment to pause, to feel proud and to know that your care matters.

Your love makes all the difference". 💛

Kinship

Trauma Informed Consultancy Services Ltd

06/10/2025

Reflections in the Sun with Dr. Debbie 🌿

In the autumn sun, I spent the morning with Dr. Debbie planning our upcoming focus group, a creative critical evaluation on an 18 month Trauma Informed project with the Regional Adoption Team.

We enjoyed a slow, nourishing lunch in the sunshine while sharing, learning, and thinking about the progress so far. 🌱

Amas

Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Adoption Service

DREAM together

03/11/2025

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