Nurture Place Approach
Welcome to the Nurture Place. I am Dr Emily Harris, a qualified and HCPC registered Clinical Psychologist and 200hr IYA Yoga Teacher.
I have over 15 years clinical experience working across various services including learning disability, mental health, neuropsychology and perinatal services, most recently working with children and families in adoption and looked after children services within the NHS. I am also a mum to two young children and fully understand the intense mental, physical and emotional juggle of parenting.
I am also a Yoga teacher which I incorporate into my work as a Clinical Psychologist in order to connect body and mind. I am fascinated by ancient wisdom and generally have an insatiable curiosity and love of learning. I also learn a great deal from each person and family I work with and understand that, whilst I bring expertise to the table, I recognise and honour the expertise that each individual I support brings in themselves and their lived experience, and in their knowledge of their child. Together, we can build an understanding of the difficulties and a pathway forward.
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I am passionate about offering a holistic understanding and means of working with difficulties that people experience. I work integratively, drawing on a toolbox of therapeutic approaches and theories meaning I can tailor intervention to each unique individual or family and their needs. I have a particular interest in the neurobiology of development, trauma and stress across the lifespan, and how attachment and early experiences have a significant impact on our relationship with ourselves and others. I am also interested in thinking about the wider context and systems that impact on a person and their experience of stress, such as gender roles, cultural and socio-economic differences and nutrition. As a woman and mother, I am interested in supporting other women on their journey to finding themselves amongst the demand of meeting other's needs and the expectations of society placed upon women. I will support you to develop self-compassion, strength and ability to honour your needs alongside the needs of others.
I draw on a range of therapy models including Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT), Narrative Therapy and Mindfulness approaches. I am additionally trained in attachment based approaches that are used to support children and families, including Theraplay and Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy.
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I am experienced in consulting with, training and supporting professional systems around children such as schools, healthcare and social care professionals to understand child development, the psychological needs of children and young people, and the neurobiology and impact of trauma and attachment difficulties. I believe it is vitally important to have psychologically aware systems that are able to understand and adapt to the needs of children as individuals, and am passionate about supporting systems to become well informed and empowered to do so.
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I believe in the power of supporting individuals and families to feel understood and less alone, and in empowering individuals and systems with information that can help them understand the psychological needs of an individual. Understanding can lead to empathy, compassion and improved relationships, reducing distress and difficulty.
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I hope to create a compassionate, warm and nurturing space to reflect, untangle difficulties and find ways to move forward, both online and in person in Worcestershire. I look forward to hearing from you if you feel I can support you or your service.
Services
PERINATAL AND PARENTING SUPPORT
The path to becoming a parent can evoke vulnerability, rawness, trauma and distress. Parenting is hard, and most of us no longer have the ‘village’ of support needed throughout this challenging journey. We offer a space to feel held and heard with compassion, and support to find ways forward toward understanding, recovery and growth for yourself and your family. We also offer therapeutic support to address difficulties and develop and strengthen parent-child attachment relationships and parental confidence.
SUPPORT FOR PROFESSIONAL AGENCIES
Developmental, trauma and attachment informed support for agencies working with children including schools, local authorities and healthcare professionals. Psychological consultation, bespoke training, supervision and support to understand the psychological, developmental, social and emotional needs of children, and how to meet these needs within complex services and systems.​
YOGA AND SUPPORT FOR WOMEN
As women and mothers, we have firsthand experience of the pressures and expectations placed upon women within a society that demands much but often does not respect or meet the needs of women. Using Yoga and a compassion focused approach to therapy, we aim to offer a space to reflect on your experience as a woman, and support you to reconnect with your body, needs and instincts. Whether you are looking to build confidence, inner strength, a sense of identity and purpose, or reduce the impact of perfectionism and inner criticism, we can support you.
SPECIALIST ADOPTION AND LOOKED AFTER CHILDREN SUPPORT
As a provider for the ASGSF, Nurture Place offers Specialist Psychological Assessment and therapeutic intervention for families who have adopted or are supporting children placed with them. Specialist attachment-focused intervention include Theraplay Informed Practice, Dyadic Developmental Practice and Specialist Parenting Support.​
Assessment and Therapeutic Support
Nurture Place offers a range of therapeutic support for women, parents and families to support them on their individual journey.
For Parents and Individuals
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​Perinatal and Parenting Support: Perhaps you are a parent experiencing burn out or overwhelm, and are looking for a compassionate and understanding space to feel heard, supported and find a different way forward. We have a particular interest in working with working with parents across the perinatal period who are struggling with any aspect of new parenthood, such as bonding, experiences of trauma and vulnerability, anxiety or low mood.
Nurture Place can offer a therapeutic space to process difficulties arising in the perinatal period, from pregnancy throughout the first years of new parenthood. NHS Perinatal services are often limited to one year post birth, however, in our experience, difficulties often arise far beyond this stage, and trauma can often manifest much later, impacting wellbeing, enjoyment of parenting and bonding amongst other difficulties. We can offer compassionate and non-judgmental therapeutic support around difficulties such as anxiety and low mood, birth trauma, bonding, attachment, and adjusting to parenthood.
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Often, during parenthood, our own histories, insecurities and trauma experiences are brought to the surface through the intense parent-child relationship and its demands upon us. Our compassionate and nurturing approach aims to help parents to make sense of their own histories and how this influences their relationship with their child or children, and address the difficulties that stand in the way of parenting their child in the way that meets their own, and their child's emotional needs. Parenting support focusses on the needs of both the parent, and the child, with space to reflect and untangle the complexities of this relationship. It is also a space to seek evidence based guidance about particular difficulties in parenting, and to seek support and understanding about the challenges of parenting throughout childhood.
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The approach at Nurture Place is non-judgmental and tailored to your needs and goals. We would complete an assessment, which would help us to create a plan for therapy that we would discuss and agree together before embarking on any therapy journey.
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Therapy for Women: Mothers and women are often the caretakers and nurturers of society, and we specialise in holding a compassionate space to enable women to explore the impact of this experience and to reconnect to their body and its innate knowledge. Through using yoga and psychological exploration, we aim to explore your relationship to self-compassion and identify how to strengthen your relationship with yourself, building inner safety, kindness and confidence. We take a holistic approach incorporating psychology and integrative therapy, yoga and yoga philosophy and ideas around nutrition, gut health, sleep and stress to support your body, mind and spirit to integrate.
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Family Support
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​Family consultation sessions: Nurture Place offers a one-off 2 hour meeting to discuss the challenges you are facing as a family to begin to increase your understanding of these difficulties. Together, we can map out and make sense of issues such as early bonding difficulties and the impact of attachment, trauma and adversity within a family. This is a reflective and compassionate space to begin thinking about how you might choose to move forwards. The meeting is followed up with a letter which aims to pull the threads of the conversation together and a story of our discussion to reflect on.
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​Family Therapy: Attachment focused therapy to support the development of a healthy attachment relationship between parent and child, or recovery from relational trauma and attachment difficulties. Emily is a Foundational Theraplay Practitioner and is part way through completing full Theraplay certification. Theraplay is a dyadic child and family therapy used to support the development of healthy attachment relationships between child and caregiver(s) using play and early caregiver-child interactions. It is a supportive and hopeful approach that supports both child and caregiver to experience connection and develop trust within their relationship. This therapy approach can be used with birth families, and to support recovery from developmental trauma and the development of new attachment relationships in adoptive, special guardianship and foster families. Emily is also trained in Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy to Level Two and uses this approach as a foundation to supporting parents and families build understanding, connection and stronger relationships. Adoptive families may be able to access this support from Nurture Place utilising the The Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund (ASGSF) through their local Adoption Support Agency.
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Adoption and Looked After Children support: As Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund providers, we are experienced in working with adoptive and special guardianship families, during and after placement, and can support families and professionals during this process to identify and support the psychological needs of parents, caregivers, children and young people. We offer Specialist Psychological Assessments and attachment-focused therapeutic intervention including Theraplay Informed Practice, Dyadic Developmental Practice and Specialist Parenting Support.​ Emily is a Foundational Theraplay practitioner, currently undergoing assessment for Intermediate practitioner certification and brings nearly a decade of experience working within this specialist area within the NHS.
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Training, Consultancy and Support for Schools and Professionals Working with Children
Trauma and attachment focused consultancy, support and training to support organisations and professionals working with children and young people, including schools and health and social care professionals.
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Consultation
Nurture place can offer psychological consultation to services and professionals looking to increase their understanding and psychological thinking about a specific child or family (psychological formulation), or to increase psychological thinking and ways of working with children and young people which meets their developmental and emotional health and wellbeing needs. This may be within schools, residential children's homes, paediatric healthcare services and looked after children's services. I can provide a one-off 2 hour meeting to discuss a specific child, family or difficulty within the service to build psychological understanding and a path forward, or bespoke, regular consultation sessions to support a service need.
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Bespoke Training and Support
Nurture place can offer training, guidance and ongoing support to services and professionals on a range of topics such as trauma, adversity, brain and childhood development, attachment and relationships, emotional health and wellbeing and supporting services to become more inclusive and adaptive to the emotional and psychological needs of children and young people. Following training, additional ongoing support and supervision can be offered to further imbed learning and change within services, and a space to reflect upon the challenges of supporting children who may be struggling within their setting.
Support and training will be tailored to the needs of the service. Please enquire for further details and an informal conversation about your needs.
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