Some feelings are too big for words. Drama therapy gives children another way.
Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospice is where children from across North London with the most complex, life-threatening conditions come for care. For many families, it becomes a second home. A place of hope. Of love.
The medical team looks after children’s bodies. You help look after their minds.
When Arthur was born in February 2023, his parents Christina and Jack were told he had severe Hypoxic-Ischaemic Encephalopathy, a brain injury caused by a lack of oxygen at birth. They were told he was unlikely to survive coming off his ventilator. The family was referred to Noah’s Ark, where Arthur received music therapy, movement therapy, and sessions in Tunes and Tales, the drama therapy group for young children.
Thankfully, Arthur’s condition improved. By May 2023, his clinicians reversed his do-not-resuscitate order.
But Arthur has an older brother. Joseph is nine years old, and he loves his little brother with everything he has.
Joseph started to withdraw. He put on a front at school. He told everyone he was fine. He came home and was angry and upset. He was carrying something enormous and had nowhere to put it.
So Joseph came to drama therapy.
Children come for one-to-one sessions shaped entirely around them, or for group sessions like Tunes and Tales, a musical group that wraps therapy in something that feels like fun. Some tell stories. Some play. Some just need somewhere safe to be.
Christina describes what happened:
“It was his safe space. He knew that he could come every Wednesday and have his time with Pasha. It was his outlet and because he is quite a tactile young person, he loved the play and the movement side of the therapy. Dramatherapy made it much more easy for him to talk, because Joseph is a master of distraction and if you ask him any kind of question he will manipulate the conversation so he does not have to answer it.”
Something shifted. His school noticed it.
“His school noticed that after the sessions with Pasha, he was actually able to start opening up to his teachers and to verbalise what was on his mind, saying things like ‘Arthur is in hospital today’ or ‘I am feeling a bit worried.’ When we told Joseph his little brother might not be here that long, it was a very difficult conversation to have. Now, after the session with Pasha, he is much more comfortable talking about these things.”
Christina, Joseph’s mum
Drama therapy didn’t change Arthur’s diagnosis. But it changed what Joseph could carry, and that changes everything for the whole family.
Pasha Wild, Drama and Movement Therapist at Noahu2019s Ark, describes the work:
“Dramatherapy is a rehearsal space for life. It is an opportunity for a young person to have a safe, secure place where they can get things wrong, where they can struggle, where they can practice their lines and rehearse difficult situations. They can say things to people in a therapeutic space that they would not necessarily feel safe saying to someone in the real world.”
Pasha Wild, Drama and Movement Therapist, Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospice
Your support means drama therapy reaches children throughout the hospice, not just the children in the beds. The siblings who are so rarely asked how they are. The parents who are carrying something enormous and deserve a space of their own.
For a child who can't find the words for what they feel, this isn't an extra. It's essential.
Drama therapy helps them say things that feel too frightening to say out loud. And for siblings like Joseph, it gives them somewhere to finally put down what they’ve been carrying.
Your support makes every one of those sessions possible. Every Wednesday. Every child. Every Joseph.
