About Theraplay® and DDP – An Overview
We support a wide range of struggling families, including:
If you are struggling with family life, please browse our support services on our Families hub.
Alternatively, you can fill out our contact form and we will get back to you to discuss your family's needs.
Click here to find out more about who we are and what we do.
1. We listen carefully to parents and involve them in our sessions.
Parents are part of our sessions with their children. We listen to families to understand how feelings and behaviours are linked. Building a shared understanding ensures that changes move into family lives.
2. We prioritise relationships, not behaviours.
A child’s emotional bonds inform how they understand, trust and thrive. By focussing on the child’s perspective, we work with families to strengthen relationships, leading to changes in behaviour.
3. We help families learn through play.
During playful interactions we can help relationships feel safe and supportive. This is central to experiencing joy, comfort and connection and it allows families to respond to the potential of relationships.
Developed over 50 years ago, Theraplay® has been recognised by the Association of Play Therapy as one of seven seminal psychotherapies for children. It "builds relationships from the inside out".
Theraplay®-based sessions include playful activities to create emotional, loving, rewarding and supportive connections between parent/carer and child.
Parents/carers are central to Theraplay® sessions. As a parent or carer, you are supported to engage children in activities that create ‘in the moment’ connection.
We focus on four essential qualities found in healthy parent-child relationships:
- Structure
- Engagement
- Nurture
- Challenge.
The activities are often familiar to parents. With the support of a therapist, they are delivered in a way that helps a child to relax and enjoy closeness so they can benefit from their parent’s capacity to organise, enjoy, challenge and soothe them.
This is particularly important for children who may have experienced disruptions and trauma in their early years - such as the children of adoptive families and kinship families. This therapy-facilitated closeness and relaxation is also very important to those children who may display difficult and controlling behaviours with their parents.
DDP was created by the clinical psychologist Dan Hughes. It helps families make deeper emotional connections with each other and is particularly helpful for adoptive families.
DDP helps children who have lost trust in adults to develop and build positive relationships. Central to DDP is a way of thinking which deepens the emotional connections in our relationship with others, referred to as PACE.
What does PACE stand for in DDP?
- Playfulness brings enjoyment to the relationship.
- Acceptance creates psychological safety.
- Curious exploration within a relationship expresses a desire to know the other more deeply.
- Empathy communicates our curiosity and acceptance, as we recognise and respond to the other’s emotional experience.
About our DDP sessions
DDP sessions with Beacon Family Services give parents an opportunity to make sense of the experience of parenting a child who has a background of trauma and may show challenging behaviours. We work with
parents to ensure we understand their experiences and get to know the child through them. Sometimes when parents reflect on the reasons behind behaviour it helps to improve family life. We explore any relevant life experiences for parents and can involve the child in support discussions about their feelings and behaviours.
Family life is improved when trust is developed.
We have created a guide to explain our services to children.
Did you know that our brains make us behave just like wild animals when we are scared
or in danger? Sometimes our brains make us behave like fierce tigers. Other times our brains make us behave like scared rabbits.
Our guide helps your child understand:
- Why they are coming to see us
- Who we are and what we do
- What happens in our sessions
- What the child can do if they don't enjoy the sessions, or don't want to see us
You can access the guide here. You can also share our explainer video for kids with your child.
