Imagine our cherry as a visual for your recovery. There are three parts and professionals can focus on one, two or all three areas to help you. There is no right or wrong, it just depends on where you are in your life. The really important thing is you understand the different roles and you seek help accordingly. 

Our service helps you with the 'exterior' and 'the flesh'. We provide education, guidance, advocacy, assessment and coaching support. We are proud of our offer and we don't overstep that remit. We share information aimed to empower you to recover. We use therapeutic practice tools to support you individually and as a family within the scope of social work practice. We utilise specialist training aimed toward healing childhood trauma. We want you to know there are an array of things you can know, develop, grow, learn, embody that can bring hope and wellbeing.

Therapists help you with 'the core'; we are not therapists. If you have experienced childhood trauma and want to work with a therapist look for clinicians that have additional training in trauma recovery and specialise in childhood trauma which can also be called 'complex trauma' or 'developmental trauma'. Complex or developmental trauma means repeated/multiple traumatic events that have happened to you during childhood. These experiences are usually pervasive such as abuse and/or neglect. Working with the core is hard because you reprocess the implicit and explicit memories, feelings and deeply held beliefs; but it can also be transformational. There are so many different kinds of therapists but as a very brief overview many specialise in body based approaches, attachment or relationship based approaches or individual reflective talking approaches - some do a mix. 

It is really important those professionals supporting you are clear about which part of the trauma cherry they help with. 

Don't be afraid to ask and use this guide to start a conversation.