Who we are… What we do…
Did you know that CASWA has a Children and Young People’s (CYP) Service? Many people don’t! This week our team took over CASWA’s social media platforms to raise a wee bit of awareness to bring our service to light!
We are a friendly team of four specialist workers with nearly 40 years of experience working in the sector with CASWA (and even more years than this working with children and young people)! We bring lots of experience, skills, knowledge and training.
We offer outreach support to children and young people in Caithness and Sutherland who have experienced domestic abuse at home or in their own relationships. Living with domestic abuse at home or in your relationships is a scary, confusing, upsetting, traumatic experience and can have a really big impact. But support can make a huge difference.
Our service covers a wide age range, supporting children in their early school years (from about 3 years) right up to school-leaving age (until 18 years). Each child or young person referred to our service is supported by one of our team who works with them throughout their journey of support with CASWA. We meet children and young people on a one-to-one basis for “support sessions” usually within school, but occasionally at their home, out in the community or in our offices. All of our support sessions are trauma-informed, centered around the needs of each individual CYP and led by them, at their pace for as long as they need it. This often means that no two sessions are the same and no two CYPs have the same support journey with CASWA – we see every child and young person as unique with their own individual needs.
The first few session of a child or young person’s support is usually spent building up the support relationship. We do this through various means, but mostly games, arts and crafts and we do all enjoy a blether! Later into support we begin to look at an individual support plan, we call them “support journeys” where we give CYPs the space and opportunity to tell us what they need from their support (but there’s still always time for games, arts and crafts and a blether). Children and young people who have experienced domestic abuse can have a number of support needs and the work that we do is very varied. Here’s some examples:
- Talking about their experience
- Supporting them to understand their experience
- Advocating for them around things like contact
- Dealing with changes
- Talking about her they are feeling
- Building their self-esteem and sense of self
- Developing social skills
- Helping them to manage their anger in healthier ways
- Understanding feelings
- Making friends
- Helping them with their worries
- Managing anxiety
- Understanding healthy and unhealthy relationships
- Learning about respect
- Supporting them with things they are finding difficult
With that being said, what’s the benefits to a child or young person receiving support from CASWA?
…And here we hand over to the children and young people themselves. Here’s what they’ve told us:
“For years I was scared to seek out help although I knew I needed it, a lot. Even though I am still scared to open up to new people I know that I have you to rely on as someone who will lead me in the right direction. It's nice to have someone I can trust with all of the things going on in my life. Ever since we started talking you've helped me to understand how I feel and how to cope with many of the issues. Thank you for noticing and helping me understand when nobody else did. Talking to you has made my life a lot easier.”
“You help me to change my feelings, every time I feel sad, you make me back happy”
“I get to talk to someone when I’m upset”
“(Support) helps me to understand things that I’m confused about”
“(Support) helps me to get out of a spiral”
“(Support) helps me to understand a lot more stuff than I did before”
“You listen to me and help me understand”
“You help me when something is wrong”
“I always feel happier after I’ve seen you”
To find out more information about our service, visit the CYP Service page on our website.