NSPCC Treatment and Therapeutic Services

It's true that lessons are learnt and young minds grow here as connections are made, but here, children heal as much as they play.

Julie Cole is the manager of the NSPCC Tilbury Children's Project, which offers therapeutic intervention services for children who have suffered sexual, physical or emotional abuse or neglect. She strolls calmly through the room where she and her team have spent several years helping children work through the trauma of abuse and guided them out the other side. It's a bright, unassuming room, the air is tinged with the slight whiff of classroom disinfectant and the imaginary echoes of absent children's voices. "I have got a great team of committed professionals who keep children at the centre of all we do,” says Cole.

Charities

Our current charities include:

PEF Contribution

PEF currently supports six Treatment and Therapeutic projects that are helping children and young people overcome the damaging psychological and emotional effects of abuse.
PEF is also helping the NSPCC to build a case to request statutory funding for these services.

Introducing the Charity

The NSPCC's purpose is to end cruelty to children. Its vision is of a society where all children are loved, valued and able to fulfil their potential. The NSPCC seeks to achieve cultural, social and political change – influencing legislation, policy, practice, attitudes and behaviours for the benefit of children and young people.

More than 2,000 children and young people were helped by the NSPCC’s 34 treatment and therapeutic teams during the course of 2005/06. These centres offer a tailored programme of therapeutic intervention for children who have suffered sexual or violent physical abuse, helping them to rebuild their lives. PEF's donation is helping fund six centres across the UK, and is also funding vital research in this area for the NSPCC.

Therapeutic intervention is a highly skilled process of working with children who have been abused and helping them to discuss it in a structured way, finding ways to help them deal with the trauma. This might involve play, painting, role-play, and talking though this last element is often the last thing that any abused child will want to do. The process is time-consuming, costly, and challenging but it works, with results that can be measured.