Mentoring
MindJam offers emotional support and guidance for children and adolescents through gaming and game design.
It is important to recognise and understand that many children have additional emotional needs that are not always met by traditional means. At a young age, these needs can sometimes feel overwhelming and often isolating.
At MindJam, our aim is to support children who suffer anxiety, stress, social issues and other emotional needs. All our mentors are very experienced and trained in working with neurodivergent individuals including autistic young people and other conditions such as PDA, ADHD, anxiety, trauma and PTSD.
MindJam uses gaming, coding and game creation, digital music and digital art, as a platform to develop positive play, problem solving and social and technical skill development, through friendly, positive and low-demand sessions. These activities are great for relieving stress and anxiety and have been shown to greatly benefit mental health and cognitive development.
In private and online one-to-one sessions, we provide a safe environment in which children are encouraged to express themselves, to talk about anything that interests them, their loves and fears, worries, problems and goals.
Through positive, non-judgemental social interaction, tuition and play, we aim to provide the right support for their individual needs, whilst also providing an educational benefit through furthering skills in gaming, game design and coding.
The sessions can range from playing together, recognising skills and growing confidence in Minecraft, Fortnite, Roblox and many other games, to learning game design, hosting a server, modding, digital art, animation, video editing, creating games in Roblox Studio and Dreams, coding games in Python and Lua, modelling in Blender, digital music, becoming trained and certified as a junior programmer in Unity and helping aim towards further education and employment.
The future is becoming increasingly digital and it is a world in which children increasingly feel at home. By harnessing the benefits of digital entertainment/creative platforms, we want to support children with aspects of life they find difficult, in an environment they feel comfortable
We work together with families, support networks, schools, councils and mental health professionals to provide the right support to each individual child.
Sessions start from £24 inc VAT for 30 minutes, and can be longer and more than once a week if required (most have an hour – £48). We do operate a waiting list which we aim to keep as short as possible, please send a message if you’d like more information and to be added to our waiting list.
Counselling
Being a parent to a neurodivergent child or a child suffering anxiety can often be challenging, stressful and isolating. We believe it is vitally important to look after your own mental health to be the best support for your child. We are now proud to offer counselling for parents with one of our excellent counsellors. If you would like to enquire about sessions please get in touch for more information.
Emily is a qualified counsellor, that has spent many years working with both adults and young people to help them through many issues such as; Grief and Loss, PTSD, Depression, Anxiety. Registered with the BACP (The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy), Emily has a client centered approach, and is here to help you take control of your mental health. Emily has worked in both education and private settings, as both mentor and Counsellor, and has well grounded understanding of the needs of both parents and neurodivergent children.