Our Services
Children’s Outreach Service
We support children aged 5 to 11 years who are or have been affected by domestic abuse. NIDAS offers support to children to talk about and understand their experiences of domestic abuse in a safe and confidential space.
How can we help?
- One to one support (6 x 45-minute sessions)
- Group sessions (6 x 1-hour sessions)
One-to-one sessions support children to:
- Understand their feelings and emotions
- Learn how to keep themselves safe
- Learn about kind and unkind behaviours
- Learn how to manage anger
- Learn how to cope with worries
- Build confidence and resilience
*Final support session is tailored to meet the individual needs e.g., relaxation / confidence
Teen Outreach Service
We support young people aged between 12 to 25 years old who have been affected by domestic abuse within the family or their own intimate relationships. NIDAS offers practical and emotional support to help young people understand their experiences in a safe and confidential environment.
How can we help?
- One to one support (7 x 1-hour sessions)
- Group work
One-to-one sessions support young people to:
- Understand domestic violence and abuse
- Understand what a healthy relationship should look and feel like
- Understand their feelings and emotions
- Develop positive coping strategies
- Develop their communication skills
- Learn how to keep themselves safe
- Access sexual health advice and support (*C- Card trained)
Family Service
We offer practical and emotional support to help women understand how domestic abuse may have affected them, their relationships and their family dynamics.
How can we help?
- One to one support sessions (6-8 1hr sessions)
- Group Work e.g. The Freedom Programme
Our outreach workers can provide advice and information around:
- Safety
- Housing
- Welfare benefit options
- Legal options
- Reporting incidents to the police
- How to collect evidence and log incidents
- Accessing other relevant support services e.g. citizens advice or mental health services.
One-to-one sessions support survivors to:
- Understand more about domestic violence and abuse
- Understand what a healthy relationship looks like
- Understand the impact of domestic abuse on children and young people
- Recognise coercive and controlling behaviours
- Understand how to keep themselves and their families safe
- Identify warning signs of abuse
- Promote confidence and self esteem
Our family team support worker provides a solution focused approach enabling the whole family unit to come together to solve problems collectively.
Our family team support worker aims to help parents to:
- Understand how domestic abuse may have impacted them as a parent
- Understand how domestic abuse can have an impact on family dynamics
- Understand the impact of domestic abuse on children and young people
- Learn how to manage challenging behaviours within the family home
- Learn how to implement boundaries and positive discipline strategies
- Rebuild relationships with their children
Our family team support worker aims to help children and young people to:
- Rebuild relationships with their parents and wider family members
- Understand how their behaviour may affect others
- Explore their worries, hopes, and wishes in a safe environment
Art Psychotherapy Service
What is Art Therapy?
A form of psychotherapy that uses art as a way of communicating and expressing thoughts, feelings, and emotions. It can help people work through life experiences that they may find difficult to put into words. The process is guided by an art therapist who supports the art-making experience and helps the client to find meaning along the way.
How can we help?
The art therapy process can help you gain insight into your relationship with others as well as gaining a deeper insight and understanding about yourself. You can explore the ways in which you relate to others and the world around you to understand your everyday life.
- 1:1 art psychotherapy
- Group art psychotherapy
- Parent-child art psychotherapy
* Please note, we are unable to support anyone who is already receiving any type of therapeutic support
We can support with:
- Self-esteem/ confidence
- Identity
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Trauma
- Attachment
- Loss/ Bereavement
- Isolation
- PTSD / C-PTSD
- Life skills / Personal development
- Self-Harm
- Suicidal thoughts
Therapy can be:
Client-led; focused weekly on what the client brings with them, starting either with a discussion or expressive artwork, giving the client opportunity to work through what they are struggling with and try to understand, process, or sit comfortable with it.
Directed; the therapist bringing session focuses each week, centred on the therapy aims and what was discussed in the assessment session. Artwork themes directed to focus on what the therapy is working towards and supporting the client through the process.
Do you have to be good at art?
No! Not at all. This is a common misconception that people worry about. Art Therapy is for everyone with any level of artistic skill. The process and creation of an image, picture or object can help make sense of thoughts and feelings which is just as important as the final art piece. All artwork is valued in Art Therapy.
What happens in art therapy?
Clients will have an initial phone consultation to discuss their reasons for referral and the art therapy process. Clients will then attend an initial assessment session to discuss current needs, support, aims, and agree to session dates/times. Sessions are offered in blocks of 6 x sessions, at which point a review session will give the therapist and client time to discuss the therapy and decide to either book in further sessions or work towards an ending.
Where the client is a child, parents/carers can be present for part of the initial assessment, review and ending sessions to gain a better understanding of the materials, the boundaries of therapy and the expectations of the process. This will also offer an opportunity to gain a holistic perspective of the client’s needs.
Sessions last for 1 hour and take place within a safe space using a range of art materials to explore and connect the art with feelings. Sessions can either be led by the artwork, or by discussions, depending on the client’s needs each week.
For when words are not enough
Art Therapy can help you explore a range of psychological, emotional and social difficulties including enduring, long-term struggles or recent experiences that are affecting your everyday life.
The art therapy process can help you gain insight into your relationship with others as well as gaining a deeper insight and understanding about yourself. You can explore the ways in which you relate to others and the world around you to understand your everyday life.
Having a safe space to be creative and expressive can help you to process your everyday life stresses as well as struggles relating to education or work.
Art therapy is a process of ‘drawing from within’ as it asks you to explore your inner experiences, feelings, perceptions and imagination. The process is guided by an art therapist who supports the art-making experience and helps the client to find meaning along the way
Awareness Training
Domestic violence is a crime. We can all be affected by domestic abuse and we all have a responsibility to speak out against it. At NIDAS we believe it is vital to know how to recognise domestic abuse and understand how to manage disclosures.
Our awareness training aims to:
- Increase professionals confidence in handling a disclosure
- Increase knowledge of support services available to victims of domestic abuse
Our training covers the following:
- Defining domestic abuse
- Signs and symptoms of domestic abuse
- Managing disclosures and support interventions
We can deliver training which is customised to your workplace or organisation, at a cost . If you are interested, please contact us on 01623 683 250 or at [email protected] to discuss this further.
Domestic Abuse Recovering Together (DART)
Helping children and mothers after domestic abuse
Through Domestic Abuse, Recovering Together (DART) children and mothers can talk to each other about domestic abuse, learn to communicate and rebuild their relationship.
Over ten weeks, mothers and children aged 7-14 meet for a weekly two-hour group session.
Children and mothers work together for an hour at the start of the group, then take part in activities in separate groups. At the end of each session, they join together again.
To find out more about the DART programme, download our information leaflet here
Wellbeing Groups
Wellbeing is another way to describe your mental health; how you feel, how you cope day to day, how in control you feel and how satisfied you are with your life. It is more than just being happy or content.
Each of us has our own sense of well-being. One person’s sense of well-being may differ from another’s.
To maintain good mental health, we want to aim for good wellbeing. But what does that actually mean and what areas should we look to nurture?
- Physical Health
- Emotions
- Relationships
- Employment
- Resilience
- Finances
- Thoughts
If you find yourself struggling in any or all these areas, it’s likely to have a negative impact on your mental health. It can be overwhelming trying to address all of them, but many of them are connected and changes in one area can result in changes in another.
As part of this project NIDAS will be delivering monthly wellbeing groups within the community of Mansfield and Ashfield. Each session will focus on a different aspect of wellbeing including activities, workshops, guest speakers and much more!
Group Programmes
The Freedom Programme
Our 10-week Programme helps women learn more about the reality of domestic abuse. We examine the role, attitudes, and beliefs of a perpetrator, as well as the responses of victims and survivors. The aim is to help victims of domestic abuse make sense of and understand what has happened to them. The Freedom Programme also describes in detail how children are affected by being exposed to this kind of abuse, and how their lives are improved when the abuse is removed.
Our trained facilitators will ensure vital measures are in place to make sure those who choose to join us feel safe and supported throughout the duration of the Programme. The Programme consists of two hourly group sessions on a weekly basis and is usually delivered within term time.
To find out more about our upcoming Programmes, please click here.
Escape the TRAP
Escape The TRAP is a programme specifically designed to help young people recognise and protect themselves from teenage relationship abuse.
Our teen outreach worker delivers the Escape The TRAP group Programme which aims to address:
- Young people’s expectations of their intimate relationships
- The behaviours and beliefs of those who treat them badly
- Identifying the things abusive partners may say and do to them
- The experience of coercive control and bullying
- The switching of tactics
- Emotional abuse
- Sexual coercion and abuse
- How this behaviour impacts the way young people might feel about themselves