Polaris Children's Services provide a service called THOR, which is an emotional health & wellbeing service for children and young people across the continuum of care.

When young people are growing up, there is sometimes lots of changes at home, at school, with friends and with family that can be difficult to deal with. We understand that it can be useful to talk to people you know about how you feel, but sometimes it may feel easier to talk to somebody else.

Your THOR worker will listen to what you have to say without judging you and will try to help you understand your feelings and help you develop confidence in expressing yourself.

THOR is a really special service, it was named by people who use the service and it stands for Therapy and Therapeutic Outreach Work which are the different types of support that we use to help children and young people.

We also offer support to the adults around you to help them to understand you better and see life from your perspective. This can involve therapeutic parenting strategies, education etc.

Finally, we offer group work to children, young people and adults relating to specific topics such as emotional regulation and other topics linked to emotional health and wellbeing and supporting placement/home life stability.

The goals of the service are simply to:

• Improve the emotional health and wellbeing of children across the continuum of care

• Improve stability of the child or young person’s home setting (wherever you are living!)

The THOR team is made up of lots of different people with different experiences, skills and opinions and we use lots of different ways to help you think about and understand what is bothering you.

Your THOR worker may start with some sessions to get to know you by playing games, talking, or making stories together. The sessions will be held where you feel most comfortable and the worker will work with you around issues you feel are important. Your worker will then try to understand these feelings with you and help you and the important people around you to try and understand them too.

Anything that feels important to you is ok to talk about with your THOR worker. This may be:

• Things from your past experiences or current experiences that are impacting your emotional health and wellbeing

• Feelings or emotions that are difficult

• Being confused about how you feel or who you are

• Using behaviours to communicate how you are feeling but also feeling like that isn’t really helping, at times

What you talk about in your sessions stays between you and your THOR worker – unless you say anything that lets us know you are in danger or at risk of getting hurt. Your THOR worker will explain the boundaries of their work with you so you know what it means for you.

With adults, we talk about how they can best support you. We look at your behaviours and help the adults around you to see what you are trying to tell them through your behaviour. We educate adults in emotional health and wellbeing, strategies they can use to support you, and help them to understand why some things are really hard for you, like trusting them for example. We also help them to be more realistic in their expectations.