Who am I?
I am a psychotherapist/trainer, Senior Accredited BACP (British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy), offering psychotherapeutic support to young people and their families/carers. I also offer therapeutic training to residential workers in children’s homes, foster carers, teachers and other staff members working with children and young people. I am the founder of the Coventina School of Wilderness Psychotherapy and have trained hundreds of students over the years. I was manager of a children and young people’s psychotherapy project for fifteen years, working with a team of therapists and psychologists. We worked with children and young people who had experienced child sexual abuse and trauma. I have over thirty years experience of working with children and young people who face severe challenges in their lives and many who present with challenging behaviour. I do not believe it is my job to fix or change young people but that given the right conditions of empathy, respect and deep listening, young people will be empowered to make positive choices for their own lives

Interventions at Embleton View
Holding the Space is a unique therapeutic intervention that has been successfully used in residential children’s homes in Sunderland, Scotland and in Oxford. This way of working has also been introduced into schools and prisons. Holding the Space has been researched by Strathclyde University and shown to have outstanding positive outcomes for young people and staff in residential homes. The copyright of Holding the Space belongs to the Coventina School of Wilderness Therapy, Northumberland. The work with young people and staff would use the following creative arts therapeutic methods;

• Council – A group therapy way of working which encourages deep listening skills, emotional literacy, empathy and community. This way of working helps young people with attachment problems to find a safe way of making a healthy attachment to the community and so improves outcomes for education and learning.

• Art Therapy – A non-verbal way of expressing feelings and emotions.

• Story Telling and Myth Making – A powerful way in which young people can
  develop their creativity and have their own stories heard and affirmed.

• Creative Writing – Helping young people to find the words to create poetry and
  written stories that express their inner world.

• Drama – Movement and voice work, enabling young people to experience
  change through their physical body and well as psychological change.

• Wilderness Psychotherapy – A way of young people placing themselves in a
  bigger landscape and enabling then to find a sense of belonging

Eric is an active partner at Embleton View, supporting students to meet their potential. Eric works with students and staff at School, developing individual strategies for students to manage their own emotions and strategies for staff to support students with their emotions.

Eric has experience working with children and young people who have challenging behaviour starting in the youth and community sector. Working as a street-based youth worker, Eric supported young people with the many challenges they faced, including homelessness, drug addiction, crime and youth unemployment (both in the USA and the UK). Outdoor education became the main body of his work, empowering young people and helping them turn their lives around. He initiated a project in conjunction with RANK film foundation and the probation service, working with young offenders in the outdoors. A high percentage of which did not return to crime.

He then moved into the care sector running a 10-bedded unit for young males with SEMH needs, developing an independence unit and post-care package for the service. Eric then moved on to formal teaching, and as a qualified teacher, he specialised in working with children with SEMH needs and when working with supply agencies, he often chose to work in the most challenging classrooms within mainstream schools.

During this time, Eric trained with George Matthews, director of Team-Teach Ltd in 1994 and later begin training the approach to others. Eric is currently a Principal Trainer with Team-Teach Ltd and licensed to deliver their full range of courses. Moreover, he delivers and has designed a range of bespoke products, training and services for the health, care and education sectors.

Eric is also an ITA certified Master NLP Practitioner and certified NLP Coach/Trainer, which forms a large part of his teaching and coaching style.   He uses this skill set to work with Heads of services, management and staff teams in mentoring programmes, ethos and culture change, and behaviour modification systems, as well as direct work with young people in the development of mentoring programmes, anger management and choices-based training programmes.

Eric believes ‘behaviour’ is nothing more than ‘output’, with often limited choices for the individual concerned. Therefore services should be working towards creating choices and resourceful states, not solely focused on restriction.

Carol Watterson is an Educational Psychologist, Health and Care Professional Council (HCPC) registered, an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society (CPsychol, AFBPsS) and a member of the Association of Educational Psychologists (AEP). She became a partner of Embleton View in September 2018 to provide assessments to inform a young person’s strengths and additional needs, how best to support them to make progress and move forward in their preparation for adulthood. This involves collaborative working with the young person, parents/carers setting staff and other relevant professionals. Carol also provides consultation with staff to identify objectives, provision and approaches to best support the young person, and training for staff as required. Through the identification and meeting of individual needs, barriers to learning can be reduced, emotional literacy can develop and improved outcomes and life chances can be achieved.

Carol graduated with a BSc (Hons) degree in Social Psychology from Loughborough University and then undertook a postgraduate teaching qualification (PGCE) at Leicester University. She taught in a range of educational settings over the next 18 years, in early years, primary, secondary and further education, including some time working in a unit for young people experiencing social, emotional and mental health (SEMH) difficulties, attached to a mainstream school in Bedford. She also undertook a masters degree (MEd) in education during this time, focusing on the teaching and learning of children and young people who have additional needs.

In 1999 Carol completed a masters degree (MSc) in Applied Educational Psychology, at Newcastle University, having spent some time working in Sunderland, Hartlepool and Redcar Local Authorities as part of that training. She was then employed as a qualified main grade educational psychologist by Darlington Local Authority.

During her 19 years with Darlington she became a Senior Specialist and established and managed the Portage Service, before becoming Lead Educational Psychologist, managing the EP Service, from September 2011 until August 2018. As well as managing the team, Carol continued to have a caseload. This involved working with children and young people up to the age of 25, their parents/carers, staff from educational setting and a range of other professionals from education, health and social care who were also involved. She worked with children and young people with a broad range of needs, including SEMH, in mainstream settings, specialist provision, including the Pupil Referral Unit, and bases attached to mainstream schools. During 2017-2018 the team developed and delivered the Emotional Literacy Support Assistant (ELSA) Programme which was attended by SENCos, Teachers and Teaching Assistants from a number of schools across Darlington.