About Creative Tailored Therapy - Creative Tailored Therapy

Qualifications, Training, Experience and Interests

PLEASE NOTE:

Unfortunately, I am currently unable to accept new referrals.

You or the person receiving therapy can attend sessions as often or as infrequently as you wish, this is to enable you or the person receiving therapy to have flexibility to suit your budget and set your own schedule.

Fees

Initial consultation/ Assessment and ongoing treatment/Therapy (up to 50 minutes) =

£100 (between the hours of 9-5pm, Monday to Friday) £110 for appointments after 5pm and on weekends

Longer Sessions up to 80 minutes: Suitable for couples, and people who wish for a longer session.

£150 (between the hours of 9-5pm, Monday – Friday) £160 after 5pm and on weekends.

Weekends and Sessions held after 5pm Monday-Friday – will all incur a Surcharge of an extra £10 as stated above.

We can also offer a reduced fee option:

please contact me for further details, this will be with an external CBT therapist.

This is £75 for the initial assessment appointment (£85 after 5pm Monday – Friday, and at weekends)

Then £65 for follow on appointments (£75 after 5pm Monday – Friday, and at weekends)

These will also incur a £10 surcharge for each session held after 5pm Monday-Friday and at weekends, as stated above.

Please do contact me via text, phone on 07944428005 or email me on simmondscat@gmail.com for current availability and details of how to book this?

Training sessions and workshops: Including:

8 week Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) and Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) courses, (including materials)
Mental health first aid
Anxiety workshops specifically designed for children
Low mood and depression: understanding your child
ADHD/ASD workshops for Parents
Parent workshops on helping your child with their mental health
Managing mental health in the workplace
Mental health first aid

All training is bespoke and individually tailored training for what ever your needs are, this includes, schools, workplaces, groups, on all things mental health, mindfulness, wellbeing, resilience and many more, this list is not exhaustive.

Please just contact me directly for more details and to discuss what your needs are and how we can help.

These can be offered on a half/full day consultancy or a course of weekly mindfulness sessions – please contact me directly for prices

We can offer concessions in certain circumstances, so please just ask if you would like to discuss this further with us.

Individual sessions include:

Therapy includes, worksheets, thought records, information sheets, specific modules for specific problems, and so many more besides I could spend all night writing them down.
Laminated coping cards, to remind you when you are struggling of the techniques we have learned together in therapy. These are credit card sized so you can keep them in your wallet, or even take a photo on your smart phone, so you can access them anytime
Laminated sheets of really helpful tips that you see as soon as you wake up, particularly good for depression if you are finding it really hard to get out of bed.
Use mobile phone Apps to monitor mood and thoughts
A list written together of things you love to do
A list of things that you know are warning signs that you maybe slipping back into old habits, like isolating yourself from others, sleeping too much or too little, spending too much, drinking too much, avoiding stuff you used to enjoy doing, feeling more irritable than usual, this is really important so that you can learn how to stop it getting worse and ask for help more quickly. We then create a crisis plan together, with a list of phone numbers, use a psychological first aid kit on yourself, which may include, call a friend, have a long sleep, cuddle a dog, go for a walk, write a gratitude list, be kind to yourself, shout as loud as you can, hug a tree, (OK maybe not that one, but if it helps!!!)
All of this incredibly valuable information will be collected during our therapy that you can keep forever and refer to whenever you need to. I would also recommend adding to it whenever you can, it could be that you have learnt a new skill or find something that makes you happy or really helps, or that when you see your mother in law, you feel worse!
Its usually known as a relapse prevention plan, or Therapy Blueprint. I personally like to refer to it as a recovery hopebook.

About me

Recognised Practitioner with:

AXA/PPP healthcare
Bupa
PruHealth/Vitality Health
Aviva
Most major insurance companies accepted
Healthcode
Health online
Aetna Global Benefits
Please compact me if your insurance company isn’t listed

I developed Creative Tailored Therapy, after much demand for CBT for young people and adults. My experience is predominantly within the NHS and independent practice. My experience is of working as a Clinical Nurse Specialist, within a CAMHS service, a Mental Health team for children and adolescents and within an adult Primary care team service treating Depression and Anxiety disorders as an accredited Cognitive Behavioural Psychotherapist.

Creative Tailored Therapy Limited was founded due to the huge demand and pressure that the NHS has been under recently. Unfortunately sometimes this meant that they could not meet the needs of some of the people who could really benefit from CBT, counselling and Therapy, this was due to not meeting the high thresholds for gaining access to services in the NHS. I believe really strongly in early intervention and teaching people how to manage their mental health before it reaches crisis point. I do hope one day soon the NHS can go back to how it was and offering more preventative therapeutic work. I still work part time within the NHS and I am a total believer in the ethos of the NHS and all that it can offer. I truly believe all staff are doing their absolute best, they really care about their patients. Staff are often working many more hours than they are actually getting paid for, going without lunch breaks and having amazing bladder control! Even though its very stressful at the moment, I still love working within the NHS and the best bit is the people that I am fortunate enough to help by enabling them to have therapy to install hope, feel happier and ultimately lead a better quality of life.

I started to work with adults for an IAPT NHS service (Improving access to Psychological Therapies). I have really enjoyed this work and found that people get better really very quickly and with substantial effects. For example, One lady was so scared of going out, (Agoraphobia and social anxiety), that she had made a list of the top 10 scariest things to do, stating with the least scary at the number 1, which was walking the dog in the field, where she felt no one would see her. Number 5 was going out for dinner, and number 10 was going into Costa Coffee on her own. Throughout our work together, within 16 sessions she not only managed to go into Costa by herself, but she actually has a job in there and is regularly the shift leader.

I offer a bespoke service, I ensure that I provide all my clients with a folder where they collect all the work we do together which becomes a fantastic resource for future use, therefore, you can reflect on what you have learnt and use this to remind yourself on how to become your own therapist and use the techniques you have already learnt to enable you to successfully manage your own problems.

My main area of expertise and passion is children & families, young people and adolescents, from ages 5-18. I equally enjoy working with adults and couples and have achieved good outcomes working with these varied age groups.

Please visit Creative Tailored Therapy’s Facebook Page

FACEBOOK PAGE

Qualifications, Training, Experience and Interests

I qualified as a Play Therapist in 2002, I always ensure that everyone I work with I treat with unconditional positive regard, empathy and remain genuine. These are Carl Rogers “Core Conditions” to a helping relationship and I have embedded these in my practice ever since.

In 2003 I undertook a pre-registration Diploma in Nursing and specialised in Mental Health. I am registered with the NMC (Nursing and Midwifery council) as a Mental Health Nurse.

I started my first role in the NHS as a Clinical Nurse Specialist in 2007, This is within a Child and Adolescent mental health team, also known as CAMHS. I have gained many valuable skills and experience of working with young people and their families. My experience includes, mental health assessment, parenting interventions, working with child and adult ADHD, eating disorders, conduct disorder, behavioural problems, High risk situations, Depression, anxiety, psychosis, Anxiety, OCD, Low self-esteem and school refusal amongst many others.

I also had a dual role and worked alongside this role as a Nurse Specialist with children with moderate to profound learning disabilities. I attended a 10 week course “The family partnership way of working”. This taught me how important it is to work in partnership with parents, they are the experts in their child’s life, not me! Together we were able to change some of the challenging behaviours by working together on behavioural strategies and reducing some very unwanted behaviours.

In 2014 I studied at Kings college London “Postgraduate Diploma in Child and Young person IAPT Therapy” Cognitive Behavioural Specialism.

I gained BABCP Accreditation in 2015, For further information about CBT please visit the BABCP website at babcp.com.

Post Graduate Child and Young Person IAPT Therapy, specialising in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Kings college London in collaboration with University college London. December 2014 Pass with merit. (IAPT stands for Improving access into Psychological Therapies)

Pre-Registration Diploma in Nursing – Mental Health, Brighton University, September 2006.

Play Therapy Certificate, APAC, Academy of Play and Child Psychotherapy, completed in 2003, this included learning sand tray skills, music therapy, and non-directive styles of working with children

Adult Person centred therapy, counselling, family therapy various short courses 2005-2007

ten week course in family partnership training 2007,

CBT masterclasses 2013-2016, including, OCD, PTSD, Generalised anxiety, Panic attacks, school refusal, How parents can help their anxious child, depression, working with autistic spectrum disorders and learning difficulties, problem solving, brief solution focused therapy,

Hypnotherapy and Life coaching 3 day weekend course – 2012

(ACT) Masterclass in Acceptance and commitment therapy 2013

Mindfulness and relaxation training during Post Graduate Diploma in CBT 2014

Sleep training one weeks intensive course, on how to cure insomnia and sleep difficulties- 2008

NVQ level 3 in Early Years Care and Education, specialising in children with special needs. Uckfield Community College, 2001.

A seven week workshop in Applied Behaviour analysis – understanding your behaviours and others in order to change them and habits you no longer wish to have. 2015.

Other Interests and my Proudest Achievements

Passing my driving test first time when I was 17
My 4 beautiful children, all girls, born in 1998, 1999, 2001 and 2009
Running 3 marathons, Brighton in 2011, London in 2013 and London again in 2015. I only started running in 2010 and couldn’t even run for 30 seconds, the first time I tried I threw up in someone’s hedge, but I kept going just a little bit but regularly, and gradually increased my distance and increased my speed. It took a year of training. I’m not fast, but I did it.
Gaining all my qualifications starting at the age of 24, ( I hated school, didn’t want go, suffered with chronic teenage depression and stayed in bed for 4 years). Got over this with the help of an amazing CBT Counsellor, this is where my passion started because I wanted to help others like me.
Therefore my first qualification was an NVQ in early years care and education, which then gave me enough entry requirements for Brighton university to apply to do Mental Health Nursing, and this sparked off a dedication and commitment to becoming a therapist which I eventually achieved in 2014 at Kings college in London. And it all started with an NVQ.
Bringing up my eldest biological daughter all by myself until she was 7, alongside studying the entire time whilst working and buying my first property. In 2006 I was lucky enough to meet my best friend who later became my husband, we even share a birthday! and I inherited 2 more daughters and later in 2009 we had one more beautiful daughter making the total 4!
I love dogs and had a huge labradoodle called Dave who unfortunately went to doggy heaven late 2023.
We felt that dogs make family so we have now have Colin (a miniature dachshund) -and Edie (a Bernadoodle), I certainly wouldn’t recommend 2 puppies at once.
We also have 1 cat called Felix. I have always secretly wanted to try animal therapy, but Dave is a bit too naughty. So I think I will stick to humans, young and old, and unfortunately Colin and Edie didn’t make it through puppy therapy school .

How and where therapy takes place

I have a cosy therapy room at my home, which is specifically designed to be relaxing and comfortable. There is a weighted blanket, soft cushions, and you can even put your feet up, so you feel totally relaxed and at home during the session.