What we do
Individual counselling and therapy to young people
Skylight offers individual therapeutic work, usually weekly, to young people aged up to 18 years old who have been sexually abused.
We use a range of direct work approaches to help young people express how they feel about themselves and how they can make sense of their experiences. All the staff have different approaches and training but all work in a non directive way. The different approaches include art therapy, child psychotherapy, counselling and gestalt therapy.
We aim to match the child or young person with the worker whose approach will best suit their needs.
Work with young people
Our work with children and young people is focussed on helping them cope with the feelings they have been left with from the sexual abuse they experienced.
We work in a non directive way which means we let children and young people bring their thoughts and feelings to us in their own time. Children and young people will come every week for an hour to meet their worker.
We don’t ask lots of questions about the abuse. Some young people will never discuss the sexual abuse in detail. Instead they work on their feelings about how the abuse has affected them and how they can begin to look to the future. Giving children and young people control over their experience at Skylight is very important because this was taken away from them by the abuse.
Work with non-abusing parents and families
Aims of Parent Support Work
The aim of our parent support service is to alleviate the impact of sexual abuse for the child and the family. We offer support to parents so that they in turn can best support their children. Skylight works with non-abusing parents of children and young people who have made a disclosure of sexual abuse and for whom initial child protection proceedings have been completed.
Parent Group
The Skylight Service is setting up a Therapeutic Support Group for those who are parenting a child who has been sexually abused. The group will provide time and space to make sense of the impact of the abuse, working with others who share some of their experiences.
Group work for young people
Skylight has offered one therapeutic group per year for the last 4 years. These have been run jointly with other agencies such as the Child Sexual Abuse Teams at Rillbank and the Young Person’s Unit. All of the groups have been for girls. This is because until recently the majority of service users were female. We are now working with more boys and are currently developing a therapeutic support group for boys.
More…
Consultancy
Skylight offers a consultancy service to social work staff, other professionals and carers who are working with or caring for children and young people who have experienced sexual abuse.
The service offers the opportunity to meet with a member of the Skylight team to explore practice issues, thoughts and feelings arising as a result of the work.
Training
Skylight provides a range of training to social work staff and carers in the field of child sexual abuse and child protection.
Workshops include:
- understanding the effects of sexual abuse
- caring for children and young people who have been sexually abused
- direct work with children and young people
- the impact of sexual abuse on child development
- caring for disabled children and young people who have experienced sexual abuse.
The core courses are:
- Training for Carers
- Modular Course
- Foundation Course
- Commissioned Training
Resource Bank
Skylight has a resource bank which is well stocked with practice material, books, journals, audio and video tapes and games, relating to understanding and working with young people who have experienced sexual abuse.
