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What you need to know about coming to

The Safe Calm Place

This place is all about therapy, or healing. What does that mean?

 

No matter what your life experience, the purpose of therapy at The Safe Calm Place is to enhance your super power as a young person. You are here because something is getting in the way of you being your best self. That might be big feelings that are hard to deal with, or something scary or painful that happened. You may not know or understand what you are thinking or feeling, but know this—you have come to the right place.

 

Therapy can be hard work!

 

We have lots of tools for us to get the work done together that will make it easier—games and art work and ways to move and ways to be quiet and still. Ways to bring your safe person in so you will feel less alone as we are working on difficult things. It may be fun at times and it may be hard at times. Growing requires all of us to take the courageous risk to step outside our comfort zone.

 

We will never ask you to do work that we don’t believe will be helpful to you.

 

We have worked with many amazing kids and one thing we have learned is that young people are always stronger than they believe, especially when they are in pain. You are NEVER alone when you are here and that will make it so that you can do the hard work of healing the places inside you that hurt and keep you from being your best self.

 

There may be days you don’t want to come here.

 

Days when you don’t want to talk or play happen. We will figure out how to help on those days, too. Or we will figure out if the best thing for you is a break. We will talk about this together with your safe person.

 

When you come through the door, you are expected to treat yourself, anyone else in the building, and the toys and objects in the office with respect.

 

This means that you matter just as much as I matter and your safe person matters, as much as the toys and the books and the sensory tools matter. You may find this hard at first, because maybe you haven’t been treated as a person who matters very much before, or you don’t believe it in your heart that you do. This is okay because I believe that you matter, and we will practice believing together.

 

We all make mistakes.

 

Some days you may get so mad that you hit someone or break something or yell mean words. You may have trouble finding a deep breath when you are feeling stressed. That is why you are here. We will practice healing our mistakes towards others together, and we will practice kind words to ourselves together.

 

I know, most importantly, that trust takes time.

 

The hard work that you have taken on to make yourself as awesome and strong as you can be, on the inside and the outside, will take longer than you wish. You may get frustrated and want to keep doing things the way you always have because that is easier. But your safe person and I will continue to cheer you on for every moment you try something new and face your fears and all the other feelings that are hard to tolerate. Sometimes our safe people need reminding, too, that healing takes time. That is what I am here for!

 

A lot of kids don’t want to ask for help or don’t want help—they want to do things on their own.

I understand this! I was one of these kids, too. But then I learned one day how lonely and painful it is to go it alone. We are ALL stronger together. Asking for help comes easier with practice. You are not alone in this.

 

Try!

 

That is all I ask of you. Even after trying, we might decide something doesn’t work for you, and that’s okay. We can make a change. But the only way we can know for sure if something isn’t right for us is to give it a chance.

 

Most of what we do and play and share will stay here.

 

Many kids wonder if their therapist will tell their family or friends or teachers what they talk about. The answer is that most of our therapy stays between us and stays in the therapy room. There may be some things that you share that will be important for your safe person to know because it might help them to help you feel better. We will always talk together about these things first.

 

Information that your therapist is required by law to share includes:

 

if you are being hurt by someone else, 

If you are seriously considering hurting someone else,

If you have expressed to me that you wish to hurt yourself.

 

This is so we can help you to stay safe. You deserve to be free from fear and abuse. You deserve to live. Please let your therapist know if you have any questions about this.

 

Just by walking in the door, you are making a courageous step forward.

Not only are you doing brave work for yourself but you are also setting an example for your family, and possibly friends and peers. Not enough young people (and not enough grown ups!) understand the value and possibilities that await anyone who seeks emotional wellness. You are growing peace and strength within yourself which you will end up sharing with anyone you encounter in your life. You are learning to become an ambassador of compassion and healthy emotional expression. Go you!

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