POP Wellbeing Play Skills

This exciting new wellbeing course is now available to book for nurturing professionals. POP Wellbeing Play Skills teaches you how to establish safety and security as well as the SandStory® Skills.

In July, I had the privilege of delivering the first POP Wellbeing training to Ashmead Combined School in Aylesbury. I have been working with the team for the past three years and they approached me wanting some training for their pastoral team to support the wellbeing of pupils after researching a few options and unsure which to invest in. I was delighted that they chose POP and their feedback was brilliantly boosting. I have really loved being in the school this term and seeing the staff taking their trays of sand and games to different childre in the school. I can’t wait to meet with them again to review how they are getting on as a team, but the anecdotal stories they are already sharing is encouraging and exciting!

The excitement and nerves in the room, as the eight of us gathered, were quickly put away as we began to play, share and learn. Through a range of engaging check-ins, and of course a flourish of wonderful materials we set out on our journey through play. Focussing first on the safety of the sessions and then looking at bringing the calm and the importance of presence in the sessions.

I had trained in how to teach the SandStory® Skills with Lara Kasza over one of the Covid lockdowns and had been waiting for the opportunity to sink my feet in the sand and deliver the training. I love training others and was keen to start a course for school staff to learn new ways to support pupils and teach some of the learning that I wish I had known when I was teaching in schools. Although SandStory® isn’t specifically designed for schools, it’s perfect for schools but can be used with any age and I’ve heard of success delivering sessions in prisons. I loved how keen Lara was to keep the sessions in the safety zone of directive work, when therapists, like myself generally work non-directively as we have the training to support this. One of my favourite parts of my Play Therapy training was learning the power of playing in the sand. I have experienced many special moments in the sand tray.

Lara has carefully created the SandStory® world and I dived at the chance of being able to deliver this training. I was delighted when she encouraged us to personalise the training and add our own flourish. It wasn’t until I was asked If I had a training I could offer, that the POP Wellbeing Play Skills characteristics became evident. I loved the structure of the SandStory® but felt that, especially since Covid, children’s feelings of security and safety had been challenged and needed prioritising and enhancing. So, obviously, this is what I focussed on adding from the knowledge that I had gained over the years as a therapist. So, if you join me on the journey to learn to run POP Wellbeing Play Sessions you will learn relevant theory and knowledge of how to do this, from the Circle of Security to attachment theory as well as some neuroscience and Polyvagal Theory to give you a good grounding when working with the SandStory® Skills structure, making POP Wellbeing Play Skills the perfect combination.