IntraQuest Community CIC

01/01/2026

Happy New Year from all of us at IntraQuest 💙

As we step into a brand-new year, we wanted to pause and reflect on the year we’re leaving behind.

If we’re honest… it’s been a tough one.

We’ve navigated ASF funding reductions, lived with uncertainty, and on a very personal level, we said goodbye to Jen & Susanna’s Mum after her journey with Alzheimer’s. Some chapters have been heavy, emotional, and have required more resilience than we ever imagined.

And yet, alongside all of that, there has been so much care, connection, and quiet hope.

This year, we’ve had the privilege of supporting so many families through assessment and therapy, walking alongside children, young people and parents during moments that really matter. We’ve delivered training for schools who genuinely want to support their communities, and supported 175 senior school leaders through reflective supervision … holding space for the people who are so often holding everyone else.

And there have been celebrations too 💛
We welcomed two beautiful IntraQuest babies into our extended family (one from our Play Therapy team and one from our Art Therapy team), held a much-needed IntraQuest pub meal, survived an IntraQuest bake-off (jury still out on competitiveness levels 👀🍰), and welcomed five surprise baby guinea pigs…because clearly we don’t do “quiet years” around here 🐹✨

More than anything, we want to say thank you.
🌟To the families who trust us.
🌟 To the schools and professionals who collaborate with us.
🌟 To our team, associates and partners who show up with heart, humour and humanity.
🌟 And to everyone who’s supported us, by working with us, by funding us, recommending us, sharing our posts, or quietly cheering us on.

We’re stepping into this new year hopeful, grounded, and quietly determined.
Still here. Still caring. Still doing the work.

Here’s to gentler days, meaningful moments, and a few unexpected joys along the way.

Happy New Year 💙
Team IntraQuest ✨

04/12/2025

✨ We’re Hiring! Reflective Supervisor (Counsellor/Psychotherapist) ✨

We’re really excited to be growing our Reflective Supervision team at IntraQuest!

If you (or someone you know) loves relational, reflective work and wants to be part of a warm, values-led therapeutic community… we’d absolutely love to hear from you.

We’re recruiting for 3 days per week (term-time only), with the option to grow into 4 days as our coaching programme develops.

We’re looking for someone who is:
🌿 A qualified counsellor or psychotherapist
🌿 Warm, grounded, reflective and relational
🌿 Confident with 1:1 and group work
🌿 Interested in trauma, attachment and/or neurodiversity
🌿 Keen to work in a calm, countryside therapeutic setting with a supportive team

The role is mainly reflective supervision with professionals across education, health, social care and community settings — but there’s also room to get creative as our services expand.

If this sounds like you (or someone you know), please share this post or tag away, it really helps us reach the right hearts and minds 💚

📩 How to apply: info@intraquest.co.uk
📄 Download the job description: attached below
📍 Oldham (hybrid), £35–£40k FTE (pro rata)

Thank you so much for helping us spread the word!
Jen & Karen x




British Association of Play Therapists PTUK - The UK Society for Play and Creative Arts Therapies
fans

20/11/2025

✨ A HUGE thank you to Co-op and all their wonderful members! ✨

We’re feeling incredibly grateful today — together, you’ve raised an amazing £1,793.57 for IntraQuest Community CIC this year through the Co-op Local Community Fund. Every time you popped in for your milk, your meal deal, or your emergency chocolate stash… you were also supporting us. How brilliant is that? 💙

We were one of Co-op’s chosen ‘causes’, and today we headed over to the Royton Co-op store to say a massive thank you in person. The lovely Darren (store manager extraordinaire!) even welcomed Rupert, Beau, and Hartley into the store so they could give their own tail-waggy thanks. It was their very first trip inside a supermarket — and they were stars.
Hartley, in particular, would like everyone to know she heroically hoovered up every stray crisp crumb on the floor. A true community service. 🐾✨

Every penny raised will go directly toward caring for our amazing emotional support animals — our goats, guinea pigs, rabbits, and dogs — who help children and families relax, feel safe, and settle into sessions. This funding supports food, cosy bedding, vet care, and the development of new shelters (especially important now our guinea pig family has expanded — they’re demanding a loft extension).

A huge shout-out to Lindsey - Co-op Member Engagement, our brilliant Co-op Member Pioneer, for all her support - it was genuinely lovely spending time with her today. 💙

Thank you, Co-op. Thank you, members. Thank you, community. You’ve made such a difference — and we can’t wait to show you how we extend the guinea-pig palace! Watch this space! 🐐🐹🐰🐶

Photo below from our celebration day 📸

16/11/2025

Hi lovely folk… a little favour if you’re up for it! 💙

Black Friday and Christmas shopping season are about to land (brace yourselves 😅), and there’s a super-easy way you can support us without spending anything extra.

If you shop online through easyfundraising, the retailer donates to IntraQuest on your behalf. You just… shop. That’s it.

Here’s how it helps:
• 🐾 It costs us over £1,000 every month to feed and care for all our animals
• 💛 Every tiny donation adds up and makes a real difference
• 📱 If you install the app or browser extension, it pops up automatically when a store donates
• 🎁 You pay nothing extra — the retailer does the donating (even Amazon chips in!)

If you’re doing Black Friday bargains, Christmas gifts, or even a late-night “accidental basket checkout”, we’d really appreciate your support.

Here’s our link:
👉 https://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/intraquest-community-cic

Thank you so much — every click helps keep our little community (and our animals!) thriving. ✨

Please like & share :-)

Help us when you shop with 7,000+ brands. Join now.

19/10/2025

“Play is the language of communication.”

Every Play Therapist’s toolkit looks a little different — filled with miniature worlds, symbols, and sensory treasures — but each item is carefully chosen to invite expression, safety, and story.

At IntraQuest, our Play Therapists understand that play isn’t just play. The way a child interacts with a toy, paints a picture, or builds a tower often tells the story that words can’t reach. It’s through these stories that healing begins — where emotions find a shape, and experiences start to make sense.

One of our Directors, Jenny, recalls working with a young carer who expressed herself not through words, but through art.
She remembers the young person creating a beautiful rainbow bird — bright, detailed, suspended mid-air, its wings glued firmly in place. The bird seemed to hold strength and beauty, yet also stillness — perhaps a reflection of feeling stuck or trapped.

As the weeks passed, this young person’s confidence grew. She began to explore more of the room, experimenting with different materials, expressing more of her story in new ways.
In her final session, she drew the bird again — this time, in flight.

✨ Every item in a therapist’s kit holds the potential for transformation — a bridge between the seen and unseen, helping children feel safe enough to play, express, and ultimately, heal.

We loved this beautiful post from our PTUK friends, reminding us that:

“It’s not the items themselves that heal – it’s how they’re used, the intention behind them, and the emotional space they create.”

Every Play Therapist has their own version of a toolkit crate – not just a box of toys, but a collection of symbols, sensory materials, and creative tools that invite communication beyond words.

Here’s a look inside what often travels with a therapist – and the deeper purpose behind each item:

🧸 Miniature figures: help children project real-life relationships and explore power, safety, and belonging through small-world play.
🎨 Art materials: drawing, clay, or watercolours provide a safe way to show feelings that might feel “too big” to name.
🪵 Natural objects stones, shells, feathers, and sand remind children of stability and connection to the real world – grounding tools in moments of stress.
🎭 Puppets and masks: give permission to express strong emotions through a character, allowing the child to stay both “in” and “outside” the story.
🧩 Building materials: blocks, magnetic tiles, or recycled cardboard let children create and rebuild worlds, testing out control, safety, and change.
📖 Story cards and blank books: help children reshape difficult memories into stories with new endings – a key part of therapeutic processing.

It’s not the items themselves that heal – it’s how they’re used, the intention behind them, and the emotional space they create.
A good toolkit crate is never just full – it’s alive, constantly evolving with the child’s needs.

✨ Imagine opening your own toolkit – what three objects would you include to help a child feel safe enough to play?

Learn more about play therapy here: https://zurl.co/RinDm

13/10/2025

“We can’t teach our way out of stress, we have to meet the brain where it’s at.” — Jenny Westwood

A huge shoutout to our incredible Director of Wellbeing, Jenny Westwood, who spoke at the Manchester School Alliance Conference this week! 🙌

Her session, “Brains, Behaviour & Belonging,” took teachers and leaders on a deep dive into what’s really happening beneath behaviour and how rhythm, play, and connection can reshape the brain for learning, safety, and belonging.

✨ Key Takeaways:
- Regulate → Relate → Reason: Calm the body, connect with the heart, then engage the mind.

- When stress hijacks the brain, thinking shuts down and behaviour flares up, safety and relationship are the bridge back.
- “Play is the language of the child; connection is the grammar.”

Jenny reminded us that every brain can grow when it feels safe, seen, and soothed and that’s exactly what our Therapeutic Messy Play Training helps schools bring to life.

Thank you to all the wonderful headteachers, SENCOs, and educators who joined Jenny’s session, your work changes lives.
If you missed her talk but want to bring this approach into your classrooms…

Drop a or comment MESSY PLAY below, and we’ll send you the link + 10% Manchester School Alliance discount code for our course.

16/09/2025

🐹 Breaking News from the Piggy Palace! 🍼

IntraQuest is officially back in full swing… and apparently so are our guinea pigs! 🙈

Our so-called all-girls gang wasn’t quite as exclusive as we thought, two undercover boys snuck in, and nature did the rest. 💘

The result? We’re now proud (and slightly surprised) grandparents to a brand-new litter of baby guinea pigs! 🎉🐹

Lesson of the day: never underestimate guinea pig romance. 😉

👉 Pop your name suggestions for the new babies in the comments below, let’s see who can come up with the wittiest ones!

29/08/2025

Over the past few weeks, our IntraQuest family has been walking through one of the hardest journeys of all - the loss of our beloved Mom, Margaret.

Many of you will know that IntraQuest is not just an organisation; we’re a family-run, heart-led non-profit. So, when something like this happens, it affects us all deeply - as a team, as a family, and as a community.

Grief is complicated. It brings sadness, gratitude, exhaustion and love all at once. For us, part of that journey has been walking alongside Mom as she lived with Alzheimer’s. It’s a cruel illness that slowly takes away the person you love, long before you have to say goodbye. Yet in remembering her life, her adventures, her humour and her faith, we’ve been reminded that love always outlasts illness.

Our sister, Susanna, wrote a song about Alzheimer’s several years ago, reflecting on its impact on Mom and on our family. She shared it at the service, and it touched so many people. For those who would like to hear it, we’ve shared it here:

https://www.canva.com/design/DAGwuP9d3rE/wecrTfcoNm4931UuCWpwPA/watch?utm_content=DAGwuP9d3rE&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=uniquelinks&utlId=h446490e7a8

It’s a deeply personal piece, but one that we hope will resonate with others who’ve experienced loss or the slow grief of illness.

We also want to thank you, our IntraQuest community, for your patience and understanding during this time. Balancing life in Birmingham with our work here in Oldham hasn’t been easy, and we know that our availability hasn’t always been what it usually is. Your kindness, support and grace have meant so much to us.

As a family, we’ve also chosen to raise money in Mom’s memory for Alzheimer's Society. If anyone feels moved to contribute, the link is here 💜 https://www.justgiving.com/team/scones-smiles-and-glimmers?utm_medium=TE&utm_source=CL

And finally, we want to say this: if you are walking through bereavement, you are not alone. Grief is not something to “get over.” It’s a journey, a weaving together of memory and love, and sometimes all you can do is lean on others until the light breaks through again. Please know that it’s okay to ask for help, and it’s okay to simply be where you are.

From our family to yours — thank you for holding space for us during this season. 💜

26/07/2025

"We felt nudged to share this with you today… 💛"
We keep thinking about the parents who are exhausted right now.
The ones who are waiting 12–24 months just to find out if their child has ADHD or Autism…
And every month that goes by, they’re left in limbo, feeling helpless and unheard.

If that’s you, we want you to know: you are not alone.

This summer, we’ve opened up a small group for families who are ready for clarity now – not next year, not "whenever the system gets to you".

✨ In just 2 weeks, you’ll receive a full ADHD or Autism assessment with our expert clinical team
✨ A professional diagnostic report you can walk straight into school with for support and EHCP applications
✨ Plus, a private 1:1 coaching session so you feel guided and confident with next steps

We have 8 spaces left, and we truly believe the exact families who need this will see this post.

💛 If you’re a parent who’s tired of waiting and ready for answers now,
drop a “YES” in the comments or DM us the word SUMMER, and we’ll personally send you all the details.

No pressure. Just a loving invitation to the families who need it most.

💛 The IntraQuest Team

14/07/2025

☀️ It’s official… the Summer Clarity Clinic is happening! ☀️

Last week, we asked if you'd be interested in skipping the 12–24 month waiting lists and getting a full ADHD or Autism assessment for your child this summer and your response was incredible.

We heard you. We felt the frustration and urgency from so many parents.
You shared that you’re tired of waiting. You want clarity, answers, and a clear plan to support your child now, not in two years.

So we’ve made it happen...

The Summer Clarity Clinic starts 11th of August and runs for two weeks at IntraQuest’s beautiful Wellbeing Centre in Oldham.

In just two weeks, you’ll get:
✨ A full ADHD or Autism assessment by our expert clinical team
✨ A professional report you can take straight to school to get the support your child needs.
✨ A private 1:1 coaching session to help you confidently navigate the next steps, no more “What now?” moments

We’ve kept this group small on purpose, so you get the attention and care you deserve.

💛 We’re inviting families who are ready to move forward and give their child the best possible start this September.

Drop a "YES" below or DM us “SUMMER” and we’ll send you all the details on how to secure your place.

Spots are extremely limited, once they’re gone, they’re gone.

04/07/2025

We are considering putting together a really small group of families this summer who want to skip the 12–24 month waiting lists and get a full ADHD or Autism assessment done in just 2 weeks, complete with a professional report they can walk straight into school with to get support and EHCPs sorted ASAP.

✨ We are also including a private 1:1 coaching session, so you’re not left asking “now what?” after the diagnosis.

👉 What do you think?

We are just feeling it out right now…Would you be open to something like that?

💛 Drop a “YES” below if you'd want to hear more (or DM us “FAST TRACK”) and we will share details if we decide to go ahead.