Trauma Recovery Centre – supporting individuals and families to overcome abuse

The Trauma Recovery Centre (TRC) in Bath works to bring positive, hopeful and strategic intervention to families who are struggling having experienced trauma, including many types of abuse and bereavement. TRC specialises in working with Type 3 victims, who are often vulnerable children and young people who have experienced the most complex abuse – including emotional, sexual and physical harm – and who are, alongside their families, dealing with the long-term consequences of this trauma.

TRC was founded in 2011 by Betsy de Thierry, a teacher, psychotherapist, author and mother of four, who set about finding a way to help families recover from significant trauma and crisis. Over ten years, TRC has worked with over 1,000 clients and delivered over 20,000 hours of face-to-face recovery intervention in Bath and the South West.

Through a highly trained team of complex trauma recovery professionals, TRC provides creative therapy via play, music and art for children and young people, as well as therapeutic sessions for parents and carers. TRC takes a holistic approach to support, so that the family has a chance to recover from the trauma as a unit, bringing hope in what is often an incredibly difficult time.

The Covid-19 pandemic saw high levels of new referrals and pleas for support, as worrying numbers of children developed serious mental health conditions. TRC was inundated with additional requests for help as families spent more time together at home.

However, the pandemic caused TRC to close its Bath Therapy Centre in March 2020. The clinical team responded quickly, transforming their working practices so that sessions with children and their parents and carers could safely take place online, also creating online groups for families who had questions or needed extra support.

In October 2020, SMV was pleased to be able to assist with the running costs of TRC by making a grant of £5,000. When the centre reopened, face-to-face appointments and new triage sessions could safely recommence. Since then, TRC has helped over 140 clients and provided more than 1,500 hours of therapy sessions.

Betsy de Thierry, Founder and Chair of Trustees, said:

“TRC has continued to work relentlessly through the pandemic, bringing our specialist knowledge into many desperate situations where families became significantly more stressed in lockdown and therefore where trauma symptoms were often exacerbated. We adapted quickly to being online and then working online and simultaneously in a different way in our buildings. It’s brilliant to have our buildings now full of people receiving the help they need.”