Princess Kate thrills children as she seems at Family Action’s Children’s Trauma Therapy Service in Bradford for Royal go to
The Princess of Wales met children at a trauma therapy centre which she described as a ‘lifeline’.
Kate spoke to therapists at Family Action in Bradford this morning, a charity which helps children and their families recover from complex trauma.
She also joined creative therapy sessions – talking to children about collage trees and wish boxes – to understand how the use of play can be a vehicle for healing.
The princess is visiting organisations in the North of England today to highlight the power of creativity, community and nature for those who have experienced trauma, isolation and poor mental health.
She has long championed mental health causes and emphasised how nature had helped her ‘heal’ from cancer treatment in a video series most recently released on her 44th birthday.
Family Action, of which Kate is a patron, provides practical, emotional, and financial support to families who are facing poverty, disadvantage, and isolation nationwide.
Their children’s trauma therapy service in Bradford works with children who have experienced abuse, neglect or a traumatic bereavement.
She said to staff at the centre: ‘It’s probably been a lifeline for them in so many ways and being able to extend that umbilical cord support – the fact that you’re able to continue that relationship with them.’
Princess Kate, patron of Family Action, during a visit to the charity’s Children’s Trauma Therapy Service in Bradford
Kate joined creative therapy sessions at the centre in Bradford where she spoke to children about collage trees and wish boxes
Kate joined a therapy session for a mother and her 12-year-old son who had been colouring in leaves to put on a collage tree, designed to help children illustrate their feelings and discuss their therapy journey.
The boy said how music had helped him process difficult emotions and that he now played drums in a band.
Kate said: ‘That’s a fantastic way to sort of express yourself and also manage really difficult and hard feelings that are sometimes harder to express with words than in any other way.’
She asked if he had ever thought he would play in a band.
He replied: ‘No. If you said it to me three years ago, I wouldn’t have believed you because I wouldn’t have thought I had the attention span for it.’
Kate then met a mother and her five-year-old daughter who were decorating a box of wishes, in which they had added items to help them express their feelings.
The princess greeted the girl by crouching down and holding her hand, before complimenting her leopard print dress.
‘I like your dress. That’s a pretty dress and your shoes, I have boots like that but they don’t have glitter on sadly. Are they your favourite boots?’ she said.
The princess is visiting organisations in the North of England to highlight the power of creativity, community and nature for those who have experienced trauma, isolation and poor mental health
Kate talks to a girl who was decorating a box and filling it with items, including a shell. The Princess of Wales said to her: ‘Sometimes when you put it to your ear, you can hear waves. That’s what I like doing with shells’
Kate joined a therapy session for a mother and her 12-year-old son who had been colouring in leaves to put on a collage tree
The princess greeted a girl by crouching down and holding her hand, before complimenting her leopard print dress
The girl had put a small pot of glitter and water into the box, which she called her ‘potion’.
Asked what the potion did, she said ‘it keeps away the bad dreams’. Kate told the girl’s mother that ‘lots of people need more of these’.
The girl had also put in a feather – which, her therapist said was to keep her ‘busy head’ ‘nice and calm’ – as well as two shells in the box.
Kate said to her: ‘Sometimes when you put it to your ear, you can hear waves. That’s what I like doing with shells.’
She then asked: ‘Have you enjoyed coming here to do these things with mummy? What have you enjoyed about it?
‘Is it being able to play together? And talk about some of the things that you find difficult?’
Later, the girl’s mother joked: ‘I think she was more excited about seeing Esther [her therapist].’
Stuart Murray-Borbjerg, senior therapist, said of Princess Kate: ‘She seemed genuinely interested to hear about the family’s experience of the service and the impact of it.’
He explained the importance of ‘non-verbal approaches to therapy’ using tools like art, music and movement to express feelings when language fails.
‘Something that’s lost through traumatic experiences is that sense of playfulness and joy which just comes back when you’re making music or you’re drawing together,’ he said.
‘[It’s] something the princess said too – that kind of gets lost as adults but George keeps her playful. I think she said one [of her children] plays the guitar and one plays the drums.’
