Online sessions for teenagers, parents and carers

Not every family can get to Kildare Town every week. So we offer sessions online — but not for everyone, and it is worth saying exactly who they are for before you read any further.

Who online sessions are for

Teenagers and older children, for psychotherapy.

Parents, foster carers and guardians, for their own support sessions.

That is it. We do not offer play therapy online for younger children, and we would rather tell you that plainly than take a booking and disappoint you.

Why not younger children?

Because in play therapy the room is the work.

A young child who has been through something frightening usually cannot narrate it. What they can do is show it — with the sand tray, the figures, the materials, in a space where a therapist is physically present with them while they do it. The therapist is reading what the child does with their hands and their body as much as anything they say.

None of that survives a screen. What is left is a young child being asked to talk to an adult in a box, which is precisely the thing play therapy exists to avoid.

Some practices do offer it. We have taken the view that for younger children it is not the same piece of work, so if your child needs play therapy, they need to come to the room.

Why online often works well for teenagers

The opposite, in fact — for a lot of young people it works better than coming in.

The journey, the waiting room, walking past someone on the way in: for a self-conscious fifteen-year-old that can be most of the obstacle. Talking from their own room, on their own ground, with no car journey either side, removes it rather than adding to it.

It also makes weekly work sustainable for families a long way out, where the alternative was realistically nothing.

Parent and carer sessions online

This is the other half of it, and it is the part families most often overlook.

You can have your own sessions online even when your child is coming in person. A parent who cannot get out of work at four can still be supported in the evening. For foster carers holding a lot on their own, that removes the one obstacle that usually stops them getting support of their own.

Parent sessions within our co-working model are €30.

​What you will need

Fifty minutes, weekly, at the same time each week, exactly as in person.

A reasonably reliable connection, a device with a camera, and — the part people underestimate — a room where the door can be shut and nobody can overhear. A teenager who can hear a sibling on the other side of the door will not say the thing they came to say.

Where this matters most

In practice most of our online work is with families in Kilkenny, Westmeath, east Wicklow, west Offaly and Dublin, where the drive is the obstacle rather than the therapy.

If you are in one of those places and your child is younger, the honest position is that the journey is unavoidable if you want play therapy with us. We will tell you if we think that travel is not sustainable, and we would rather do that than watch it fall apart in November.

Get in touch

Ring 085 711 5668 or email contact@safesteps.ie. No referral is needed, and we will be straight with you about whether online is the right fit.

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