Child and play therapy for families in County Laois

Laois is one of the easiest counties to reach us from, and a good number of the families we see make the trip up the M7 every week.

The journey

Portarlington is about twenty minutes. Portlaoise is roughly twenty-five, straight up the motorway. Mountmellick and Mountrath are closer to thirty-five, Abbeyleix around forty, Durrow and Rathdowney nearer an hour.

For most of north Laois, a weekly session is a genuinely realistic commitment rather than an aspiration. From the south of the county it is a longer evening, and worth thinking through properly before starting rather than three months in.

What we do

Play therapy for younger children and psychotherapy for teenagers, from about age 4 up to 18. Fifty minutes, weekly, the same slot each week so it becomes part of the routine rather than a negotiation.

We also work with parents and foster carers alongside the child's own therapy. In the co-working model one therapist works with your child while another works with you, in parallel, so you have somewhere to put your own worry that is not your child.

No referral is needed. Parents ring us directly, and so do GPs, schools and social workers.

Online, if the drive is the obstacle

We offer online sessions for teenagers, and for parents and carers who want their own support. For families in south Laois with an older child, that often makes weekly work possible where an hour each way in winter would not.

Play therapy for younger children is in person only. If your child is younger and you are at the far end of the county, it is worth being honest with yourself about the weekly journey before starting rather than three months in.

​For Tusla, foster carers and schools in Laois

We work with children in foster and residential care, and with the adults around them. Consent for a child in care is the item that most often delays a referral, and we would rather sort it at the outset than discover it in week three.

Training and consultation for carers and staff teams is available and often reaches further than individual work with one child.

Get in touch

Ring 085 711 5668 or email contact@safesteps.ie. A first conversation is just a conversation.

Abbey House, White Abbey Road, Kildare Town, Co. Kildare, R51 A589.

Where we work: Kildare · Carlow · Kilkenny · Offaly · Dublin · Wicklow · Mullingar and Westmeath · Online sessions