Therapy
What Bayleaf offers


Bayleaf Care offers high-quality therapeutic residential care for vulnerable children and young people who have experienced trauma in their formative years, from 5-17 years of age.
Our bespoke, high-grade therapeutic homes in the local community achieve this. The structure and practices in our therapeutic milieu are designed to meet the needs of children who are not able to manage or be managed within a family environment, whether this be birth or foster care. At the same time, they are children who require therapeutic care and intervention whose emotional age and vulnerability would make their placement in a larger, traditional children’s home unsuitable and inappropriate.
Every day at Bayleaf Care is a therapeutic journey for a child. We place a strong emphasis on understanding the child’s behaviours and the importance of routines and
structure, which serve as the significant pillars of relationships with others, providing a sense of predictability and stability.


In our homes, we view a collective gathering as necessary; this includes children’s meetings and mealtimes. Each day is thought about and planned for the child to give them opportunities to establish trust, share their feelings, form relationships, communicate appropriately, and experience a feeling of being cared for. Over time, all children are supported to develop a sense of belonging and are assisted to develop their potential and sense of optimism, which have often been eradicated because of their difficult experiences
All the children in Bayleaf Care receive an intensive support package provided by experienced and trained therapeutic staff members. A psychotherapist is based in each of our homes, and the therapeutic approach employed by the staff members in each home is the therapeutic parenting approach of PACE


The Therapeutic Environment
Bayleaf Care links the child’s need for a well-planned, professionally staffed, structured, supervised environment and their need for a safe, nurturing, family-sized therapeutic experience. By providing a highly structured therapeutic milieu that is conducive to each child’s individual needs, we help the children achieve a greater understanding of their inner selves, their view of the world external to themselves, and their past relationships and experiences.
Our Therapist Nikki


I am an accredited Dance Movement Psychotherapist with an embedded holistic approach, focusing on children’s unspoken cues, their playing, and body posture. Essentially a dance movement psychotherapist uses dance and movement as a therapeutic tool for helping children navigate their psychological, emotional, and physical difficulties. This particular form of therapy is based on the premise that the body and mind are inextricably linked, and that movement can communicate feelings and thoughts that are difficult to define verbally.
My psychodynamic and humanistic approach is person-centred, focusing on creating a nurturing and non-judgmental environment in which children can explore their feelings, experiences, how their unconscious thoughts are expressed through movement and how traumatic memories are stored in their bodies. Dance Movement Psychotherapy is a powerful tool allowing children to have a non-verbal outlet for expressing complex thoughts and any other issue that has been bothering them. Moreover, Dance Movement Psychotherapy can focus on areas such as role-playing, music, drama, playing and not only on body movement to gain a holistic understanding of an individual’s needs.


I utilise therapeutic tools tailored to each young person’s needs, aiming to help the young people create healthy relationships in their lives, overcome past adverse experiences that shape their behaviours, and equip them with different techniques that will help them with emotional regulation in the future. The biggest goal is to help the young people blossom into happy, nurturing individuals who are excited to live fulfilled lives.