Staff Bio - DIR Floortime
DIRFloortime® Informed
Child Psychotherapist Support
Early intervention support for children across neurodiversity.
About Zuzana
My name is Zuzana Camm and I am an Integrative Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist and a DIRFloortime® Expert Training Leader. I have deep passion for supporting emotional wellbeing in neurodivergent children. I feel greatly rewarded by my work, particularly when witnessing children’s growing emotional resilience, healthy sense of self and deepening connection with their parents, siblings, friends and school staff.
With over 25 years of experience in various childcare, educational, and therapeutic roles, I have gained a deep understanding of the unique challenges faced by children and their families across neurodiversity. My background in play work, primary school teaching, music tutoring, nursery childcare, and having worked as a SEN nanny, Son-Rise player, Floortime practitioner and trainer and a child psychotherapist has allowed me to approach therapy from different angles and be creative in my interventions.
I am particularly passionate about using play-based developmental and relational therapeutic approaches that value the importance of the body-mind connection. I greatly value and respect play as a therapeutic tool and its power to enable children express themselves, connect with others, and make sense of their experiences.
What is DIRFloortime®?
DIRFloortime® is a developmentally sensitive, relationship-based approach developed by Stanley Greenspan, MD and Serena Wieder, PhD. It is a comprehensive developmental and treatment model that addresses the individual needs of a child. DIR informed support is well suited for children on the autistic spectrum and to children with neurodevelopmental differences. The model is evidence based and used by professionals in different fields.
Main goals
Early Intervention
Together, we can support your child’s emotional well-being and development, with special focus on social and emotional skills.
Prevention
Together, we can contribute to building your child’s emotional resilience to prevent emotional difficulties later in life.
Healing
Through shared playful interactions we can contribute to emotional trauma healing and bring relief to areas of distress.
The therapeutic framework
Three core areas D•I•R
D
I
R
I can help you look closely at your child’s social-emotional developmental capacities: ability to regulate their emotions, engage, initiate interactions, problem solve, play symbolically, and make logical bridges between ideas.
In our therapeutic work we become detectives of yours and your child’s uniqueness and together we will pay careful attention to your child’s palette of individual needs, your family’s values, biological make up, sensory processing, interactive style, and life circumstances.
Positive relationships are the main vehicle for strengthening children’s mental health and emotional wellbeing and provide foundations and fuel for learning and personal growth.
"Floortime is a specific form of a child-led play that is the core of the therapeutic work."
Benefits
Who this supports
For Parents
- Better and deeper understanding of their child
- Developing deeper emotional connection with their child.
- Accessing intormation about how to parent therapeutically.
- Practicing therapeutic strategies delivered through playful interactions
- Strengthening their ability to advocate for their children.
- Finding new wavs of relating and sharing more joyful moments with their child.
For Children
- Stress reduction and ability to experience and share more joy.
- Developing ability to be aware of and manage their feelings.
- Growing interest in engagement with the world around them.
- Deepening emotional connection.
- Building emotional resilience
- Ability to heal and recover from traumatic experiences.
For parents
For children
How sessions work
Floortime, together
Floortime
During Floortime we will closely observe, follow and join in your child’s interests to bring them into a shared world where we create systematic, playful opportunities to help your child achieve the therapeutic goals.
Video Recordings
Regular reflecting on video recordings of our play interactions is one of very valuable tools we use, when appropriate (this is used particularly with very young children).
Therapeutic plan
The therapeutic work starts with an initial assessment period of six weeks, after which a further treatment plan is discussed with parents. Generally, the sessions are delivered on a long-term basis, weekly, and reviewed every six weeks.
services
Ways we can work together
One to one child psychotherapy (clinic/school)
Parent-child interaction support (clinc/home)
Psychoeducation and parenting support (clinic/zoom)
Support for teams in schools
Inter-disciplinary collaborations
DIRFloortime® training, coaching, and mentoring (icdl.com)
Please get in touch to discuss your needs and have your questions answered in an informal. free of charge, introduction call. Get in touch.