Rhiannon Presentation

LLAMAU COUNSELLING SERVICE:
My vision for developing a new counselling
service to achieve the best outcomes
Rhiannon Gray 17th December 2020

UNIQUENESS
I am a qualified and experienced Art Psychotherapist who
graduated in 2015 from USW with a master’s degree and
hold extensive understanding of childhood development.
More recently, 3 years line management for Primary Care
Services on behalf of a local Mind, previous to this I line
managed the Counselling Service for New Pathways for
2 years. I have extensive experience of developing and
up-scaling projects through a robust service design model
and have a foundation qualification in Prince 2 training for
project management. I also have experience of delivering
self-guided training to large cohorts online.
My real uniqueness is that I am warm, kind, and
compassionate. I have values of helping others because I
grew up in an environment that was forever changing, and
I learned how to communicate effectively, how to make
healthy relationships, how to be resilient and put this down
to having a supportive close-knit family and education
systems that understood military issues.

VISION:
To give every child, youth and woman access to
the best psychotherapy any time, any place
anywhere

NEED
Youths
• Average acceptance rate of referrals into CAMHS is 59%
• 32% of young people turned away from CAMHS even when referrals made by
qualified professionals
• ‘Mind over Matter’ report (2018) recognises the existence of a ‘Missing Middle’
• 97% of homeless young people have experienced one or more adverse childhood
experiences (ACES) which ultimately lead to a range of complex issues later in life
Women
• 10,407 women in Wales asked for help with homelessness
• Complex needs which require more than just a roof over their heads
• Many of these women are parents or pregnant
Children
• Children are at risk of domestic abuse which goes on to have a negative effect on
their future, the cycle potentially starts over again

NEED (cont..)
Llamau SEYHoPe Research
• Mental health assessment of needs via screening tool
• 87.8% of young people with experience of homelessness had a psychiatric
disorder compared
• 31.3% of those participating in the research had accessed any form of
mental health service
• Abuse, family problems, relationships add to poor mental health and
homelessness

RESPONDING TO NEED (DEVELOPING SERVICE)
1. Talking Treatments
2. Arts & Creative Therapies
3. Self-Directed Support Pathways
4. Therapeutic Groups

1. TALKING TREATMENTS
Talking therapies are treatments which involve talking
to a trained professional about your thoughts, feelings
and behaviour.
2. ARTS AND CREATIVE THERAPIES
Arts and creative therapies are treatments which
involve using arts-based activities in a therapeutic
environment, with the support
of a trained professional.

3. SELF-DIRECTED SUPPORT PATHWAYS
Self-help resources that can help you with common
mental health problems including stress, anxiety
and depression
Depression and Anxiety
4. THERAPEUTIC GROUP WORK
A safe environment in which to experiment with getting
and giving feedback and exploring new behaviours
and responses in a social context which tend to
contain elements that enable a simulation of family
and community experiences

EMBRACING PIE
A Psychologically Informed Environment (PIE) “... is one that considers the
psychological makeup – the thinking, emotions, personalities and past experience
- of its participants in the way that it operates.
The purpose of a PIE is to help staff understand where these behaviours
are coming from and therefore work more creatively and constructively with
challenging behaviours – this can result in better housing and health outcomes for
beneficiaries.
A PIE has 5 key elements:
1. Relationships – equal power balance
2. Staff support and training – a programme of training, i.e Cognitive AT.
3. The physical environment and social spaces – no clinical feel.
4. A psychological framework – the four services
5. Evidence generating practice – measuring impact and informing change.
REF: Creating a Psychologically Informed
Environment - 2015.pdf (homeless.org.uk)

KEY COLLABORATIONS: ACCESS ANTIME, ANYWHERE
www.childline.org.uk
Text YM to 85258
www.youngminds.org.uk
Text ‘SHOUT to 85258
www.giveusashout.org
116 123
www.samaritans.org

MEASURING THE SERVICE
To monitor service impact, we would use relevant outcome measures:
• YP-CORE
• CORE 34
• GAD-7
• PHQ-9
• WEMWBS
Applying the principles of safe practice in line with BACP guidelines,
ensuring practitioners are appropriately qualified and promoting good
governance.

Thank you for listening