Supporting Children and Young People
At Children in Mind, we support children, young people, and families across Cheltenham with a full range of child and adolescent psychiatric and psychological services.
Our team of highly experienced practitioners brings over 20 years of expertise from NHS child mental health services, ensuring care that is compassionate and where child/family centred approaches are delivered that are evidence-based.
The service practitioners have led clinical departments and line managed and supervised a range of mental health professionals and disciplines. This enables the service to be highly flexibly and unique in this respect. The service practitioners are dual qualified in different modalities and approaches to child mental health.
The service delivers a quality approach to child mental health and takes great pride in providing support to children and families. We simply will go above and beyond to provide the interventions and engage with networks around the child so they can thrive in all aspects of their lives.
The service delivers interventions and treatment from clinical observations and the service writes comprehensive clinical reports.
The service can provide neurodiversity assessments which are in line with NICE guidelines and are the equivalent to the assessments provided by the NHS. The service can provide generic psychiatric assessments which include, depression, anxiety, PTSD, OCD, mood disorders which is not an exhaustive list.
Step-by-Step Evaluation
The service provides expert psychological services which is mainly, but not inclusive, to child & adolescent psychoanalytic psychotherapy. The service provides EMDR and informed approaches from CBT and DBT.
All services are provided with children/families/carers in mind with children being at the centre of all interventions and treatments. The services are planned individually for every patient and operates with flexibility.
We regularly keep in touch with patients, and we provide direct ways of contact where we promptly respond. The service is transparent, and we invite any queries, concerns, and issues to be thought about and resolved collectively without judgement.
We provide supervision, consultation and training to professionals, establishments which can be tailored to a specific service or topic of interest. We can provide specific consultation on specific cases, dilemmas, challenges, and we are able to explore organisational complexities.
EMDR – Eye Movement Desensitisation Reprocessing
EMDR supports people to manage and overcome issues relating to trauma. EMDR is recommended by the world health organisation and NICE. EMDR can is a progressive treatment for trauma. EMDR may not suit everybody’s circumstances or needs and it is an effective treatment for trauma related symptoms.
Patients have reported this is a healing process and has enabled people to work through and manage trauma and complex trauma. It has lowered post-traumatic stress responses and people have been able to lead fulfilled lives following the intervention. EMDR can be delivered to adults and children where they can recall memories, intrusive thoughts, and past trauma from single events to accumulative traumatic events.
Trauma can be identified and thought about in different ways for different people and the impact of these events can be mild, moderate, and severe.
There have been extensive controlled trials from EMDR and ongoing research nationally and internationally. There is a growing community of professionals and people who have undergone EMDR therapy treatment. It has demonstrated effectiveness for symptom reduction, processing, flashbacks, dissociation and more. EMDR can support people experiencing anxiety, addiction, insomnia, intense pain, bi-polar, OCD, depression, and unexplained medical conditions.
Interventions and treatment are reviewed through assessment and carefully planned intervention. EMDR identifies patterns and can provide strategies, resourcing, and can influence other talking therapies to be effective.
EMDR can reset neural patterns of emotions and can place memories which can be deeply distressing from present into the past. It can build resilience and provide stability. It can rework trauma to enhance calm states of mind which enable states of mind of hypervigilance and can break the cycle of traumatic events and thinking.
It can enable memory networks to function differently and replaces negative beliefs with positive beliefs. This can reduce triggers from enabling certain responses and targets certain threats with thinking and management. EMDR enables physical and psychological healing.
Child Psychiatry
Child and adolescent psychiatry is a form of medicine which focuses on the diagnosis, treatment and reduction of symptoms to enable development and for people to overcome emotional and behavioural disorders with the aim for people to lead fulfilled lives and recover from psychiatric distress. Child psychiatrists can treat children from infancy to the age to early adulthood.
The common conditions are, but not exhaustive, ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), Autism Spectrum Condition (ASC), depression, anxiety, PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), and mood disorders. Child psychiatrists work in collaboration with other professionals and can provide medical therapy and in-depth assessment of biological, physiological, and sociological aspects to a person’s presentation.
They can complete safeguarding/risk assessments to ensure a child is safe and supported throughout careful treatment and interventions. Interventions and treatment must be reviewed throughout a child’s treatment and care is always carefully planned. The aims of child psychiatry are to enable recovery and to overcome challenges/difficulties. Child psychiatrists are medical experts and have undergone extensive training and are registered with the general medical council (GMC).
Mental health challenges often start in childhood which is why it is very important to access the right help or a combination of help when symptoms and challenges emerge. Help and support in childhood often resolves the difficulties and does not impact a person into adulthood.
Child & Adolescent Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy (CAPT)
A child & adolescent psychoanalytic psychotherapist is the only mental health specialist training to focus exclusively on work with children and young people (0-25) and their families.
The work of a CAPT is to understand the complexity of different presentations, behaviour and symptoms displayed by children and young people, which may include more than one diagnosis, reflecting their fluctuating states of mind. CAPT’s deliver an approach which takes into account the age and stage of development, and the influences of the environment on the child.
CAPT work with complex and comorbid conditions and those suffering from developmental breakdown and systemic complexities. This includes children who have been neglected, abused, those suffering with trauma, moderate to severe depression including suicidal thoughts, crippling anxiety, eating disorders, those with learning difficulties, and communication disorders such as autism spectrum disorders. This is not an exhaustive list and CAPT work with other difficulties and complexities.
CAPT is not a single therapeutic modality, but rather a powerful combination of skills, knowledge and experience that can be applied to a wide range of patients, groups, and work contexts. This equips child & adolescent psychotherapists with the capacity to work with the complex cases characterized by severity of disturbance, co-morbidity and, often, multi-agency involvement.
CAPT are trained to offer dynamic specialist interventions to parents so parents/carers can understand the child’s presenting difficulties. The training includes the use of assessment, direct interventions, state of mind assessments, critical evaluations, audits, extended assessments, consultations, mental health assessments and formulations.
CAPT can treat emotional disorders, depression, bulimia nervosa and anorexia nervosa, anxiety disorders, self-harm, behavioural disorders, emerging personality disorders, children impacted by parental conflict and domestic abuse, trauma, adverse childhood experiences and physical illnesses.
Cognitive Behavioural Informed Approach (CBT)
The service uses the core principles of CBT and draws on this modality to help support children and families. These are adapted and integrated into other modalities the service provides. This ensures and enables multi modal approaches to meet the needs of the children and families.
This approach provides a structured way of thinking about a difficulty/challenge with a solution focused understanding of the issue and developing strategies and coping methods to combat the issue. These can be approached with a specific method and when done in conjunction with other modalities can provide highly flexible approaches to holistically supporting children and families.
We provide structured and unstructured interventions, they can be adapted and blended with other modalities. An informed CBT intervention can apply cognitive restructuring, behavioural activation and responses, recording thoughts, enabling mentalisation, problem solving, empowering, exposure, psychoeducation, goals setting, objectives/aims, evaluation with mindfulness and grounding in mind.
With Children in Mind Cheltenham, families gain not just professional support but also guidance, strategies, and confidence to help their children thrive in every aspect of life.
Dialectical Behavioural Therapy Informed Approach (DBT)
The service uses the core principles of DBT where a skills-based approach is delivered. The services identified tools of DBT and applies it to the patients and enables the core elements of DBT, mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotional regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness.
The service blends this approach with other modalities where patients with emotional dysregulation can received adapted applied approaches to their presenting difficulties. Patients who have experienced adverse experiences or trauma respond well to these approaches. These are delivered flexibly, with learning skills in mind and can be applied to various situations, circumstances and presenting difficulties/challenges.
Play Based Psychological Interventions
Play is a language and communication of children. There are times where direct talking is not the most appropriate way of engaging with a child. At times, children may lack the ability to coherently articulate their internal thoughts and feelings, and this can be done through play.
The service has highly trained clinicians (CAPT) who are very experienced and knowledgeable at engaging children through play-based interventions. Children can convert their thoughts and feelings in play which can be conscious and unconscious communications. Play can have hidden meanings and this can be sensitively thought about. This intervention can be delivered in a developmental age-appropriate method which can also enable other adaptions of crafts, drawing and other materials. Play can be comforting, reciprocal and engaging in a non-threating way where children can display difficult challenging emotions.
Play can regulate emotions, problem solve, express difficult life events, strengthen a child’s internal world and bring to life their difficulties/challenging with the clinician. Parents/carers can also participate in this activity if required. Play based interventions could assist with anxiety, fears, grief, loss, trauma, abuse, family breakdowns, children in care, behavioural issues, attachment difficulties, low mood, social skills, and autism spectrum condition.
FAQS
What services are available for children and young people aged 0-25?
We offer a range of psychological and emotional wellbeing services for children and young people, including assessments, counselling, psychotherapy, and specialist therapies. Support is tailored to individual needs—whether your child is facing anxiety, low mood, trauma, behavioural challenges, or neurodevelopmental differences.
How do I know if my child needs specialist support vs. general advice?
If your child’s emotions, behaviour, or development are affecting their daily life, school performance, or relationships, it may be time to seek specialist help. A professional assessment can help identify underlying causes and guide the most effective form of support.
How do I know which type of therapy (CBT, EMDR, DBT, etc.) is right for my child?
Our clinicians assess each child’s needs before recommending an approach. The therapy type depends on the child’s age, challenges, and preferences — ensuring the treatment plan feels supportive and effective.
Do you offer therapy online as well as in person?
Yes, we provide both in-person sessions at our Bristol location and secure online therapy for convenience.