Community Therapeutic Arts Programmes

I founded The Holding Palette CIC to make structured, clinically informed therapeutic arts programmes more accessible across Greater Manchester. These programmes sit alongside, but gently outside, formal therapy. They offer early emotional support in schools and community settings for people who may not need clinical treatment, but who would benefit from a safe, creative space to slow down, express themselves, and make sense of their experiences.

My programmes are shaped by my training as an art psychotherapist and my belief that images, materials, and metaphors can hold what words cannot always reach. Each programme is carefully structured around a central metaphor, such as the ocean, vessels, or rivers. These images offer gentle ways to explore emotion, containment, care, transition, identity, and belonging without asking people to disclose more than feels safe.

Fluidity and water often appear in both my imagery and my approach. Through painting, drawing, clay, sensory materials, and sometimes sumi-e, I invite participants to move with the flow rather than resist it – to notice feelings, memories, and changes as they rise, settle, shift, and take shape. The work is not about producing “good artwork”. It is about creating a thoughtful, relational, and low-pressure space where people can feel held, connected, and more able to understand themselves.

Through The Holding Palette CIC, this approach has developed into programmes such as Emotional Ocean, which supports children’s emotional literacy and regulation, alongside emerging projects for carers, families, immigrant communities, and groups navigating life between cultures. Across all of these programmes, the focus remains the same: using art-making, metaphor, and emotional containment to support presence, belonging, and early wellbeing before difficulties become more overwhelming.

To find out more about The Holding Palette CIC’s community therapeutic arts programmes, please visit our website or follow us on social media:

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