I'm Seren Hughes

Before I was a play therapist I was a hospital play specialist, spending my days on a children's ward in Cardiff with a trolley of toys and a job the medics half-joked was magic: getting frightened children ready for the things nobody could talk them into. Ten years of that teaches you something no textbook quite says. Children can face almost anything, but they do it through play, in their own order, with a safe adult nearby. Eventually I wanted to offer that depth properly, one child at a time, so I retrained as a play therapist, and the trolley became a room.

I work with children aged 4 to 11, and with their parents, because you are half of this work. Families come after separations and bereavements, after moves and new siblings, after school has used careful words in a corridor conversation, and sometimes simply because a child has gone quiet, or gone stormy, and nobody can say why.

Why play, and not a talking chair

Asking a six-year-old to sit down and explain their feelings is asking them to work in a second language. Play is the first one. In the playroom your child chooses: the sand tray, the puppets, the paints, the dressing-up basket. They lead, I follow, and I keep the whole thing safe. To your child it feels like play. Underneath, it's the difficult stuff being picked up, examined and slowly put down, at a pace their nervous system can actually manage.

Safeguarding comes first

Safeguarding children is the first duty of this practice, before technique, before rapport, before anything else. I hold an enhanced DBS check, the most thorough criminal-record check available for people who work closely with children, and I will always show you the certificate. I'm registered with Play Therapy UK, the UK's professional register for play therapists, and I work within its ethical framework and under regular clinical supervision. If anything a child shared ever made me worried for their safety, I would act on it immediately, involving you at every step unless doing so would put your child at greater risk. You should expect nothing less from anyone who works with your child, and I'd encourage you to ask every practitioner you consider these same questions.

You're part of this too

Play therapy is not a service you drop a child at. We start with a parent consultation before your child ever meets me, and we review together every six weeks or so: the themes I'm seeing, what's shifting, what might help at home. The details of your child's play stay private to them, their progress never does, and with your written consent I'll work alongside school as well.

You'll find us in a bright ground-floor playroom just off Cathedral Road in Pontcanna, with kite bunting on the wall, a sand tray in the corner, and a proper cwtch of a reading corner for the children who need to start slowly.