Child and play therapy for Mullingar and Westmeath

Mullingar is about an hour from Kildare Town, and Athlone longer again. That puts Westmeath at the outer edge of weekly in-person work, and it is worth being straight about what that means before you start rather than after.

What the journey actually asks

Kinnegad is the closest part of the county, around forty minutes. Mullingar is roughly an hour. Athlone and Moate are an hour and a quarter or more.

A weekly two-hour round trip after school, through a winter, with a child who is already struggling, is a serious commitment. Some families sustain it. Many start well and find it slipping by week ten, and missed sessions do more damage than people realise — the pattern of turning up is part of what makes therapy work.

Online, which for Westmeath teenagers is the better answer

We offer online psychotherapy for teenagers and older children, and online support sessions for parents and foster carers. For Mullingar and westward, that is usually what we would suggest.

For older children it often works better than the drive would have. Talking from their own room, with no journey either side, removes a barrier rather than adding one.

Play therapy for younger children is in person only. The room and its materials are the work. So from Westmeath, a younger child means the full weekly journey, and that is a genuinely big ask. We will tell you if we think it will not hold.

A pattern some families with a teenager use: the first few sessions in person so the young person knows the therapist, then online with occasional visits.

​What we offer

Play therapy for younger children, psychotherapy for older children and teenagers, ages 4 to 18. Fifty-minute weekly sessions.

Work with parents and foster carers alongside the child's therapy, including our co-working model where one therapist works with the child and another with the adult.

No referral needed.

For professionals in Westmeath

Training and consultation travels well. A day with a residential team or a group of foster carers in Mullingar is one journey and it reaches every child those adults work with.

For individual referrals from Tusla, schools or GPs, we would usually be discussing online delivery for teenagers given the distance. For younger children needing play therapy, the work has to happen in the room, and we are happy to talk that through before anything is committed.

Get in touch

Ring 085 711 5668 or email contact@safesteps.ie.

Where we work: Kildare · Laois · Carlow · Kilkenny · Offaly · Dublin · Wicklow · Online sessions