Eleanor Catchpole Counselling

27/07/2026

We were honoured to welcome Her Majesty The Queen to Emmaus Norfolk & Waveney on Monday 20 July, where she celebrated our pioneering work supporting women who have experienced homelessness and trauma.

During her visit to our Ditchingham community, Her Majesty met residents, staff and women taking part in our specialist Women’s Project. She spent time listening to their experiences and learning how our trauma-informed support is helping women rebuild their lives with confidence, hope and purpose.

Based in the peaceful grounds of the former All Hallows Convent, our Women’s Project offers a safe home, therapeutic support, meaningful work opportunities and personalised development to help women recover from homelessness and trauma and take positive steps towards the future they deserve.

It was a privilege to share our work and the incredible journeys of the women we support. 💚

Read more about the visit: https://emmaus.org.uk/norfolk-waveney/her-majesty-the-queen-visits-emmaus-norfolk-waveney/

02/06/2026

Why would this child wear shoes that don’t fit?
Or a jumper full of holes?

Children who have experienced trauma do not always experience physical discomfort in the same way as other children.

Survival drives can override immediate comfort.
You don’t think about hunger if your plane is crashing.

For many traumatised children, familiar feels safer than comfortable.

I sighed when I saw my daughter had taken her old shoes back out of the bin and worn them out. She had a lovely new pair. But the new shoes didn’t fit her internal working model.

The old shoes did.

Supporting professionals usually mean well when they notice things like this. They care deeply about children. But sometimes concern moves so quickly towards blame that nobody stops to ask:

“What happened here?”

Instead, the assumption can become:
Child looks neglected.
Blame the parent.

And this is where false allegations can begin. And frankly, I’m tired of gaps in trauma informed practice .

Trauma-informed practice means understanding that behaviour often has MEANING long before it has logic.

Adults MUST learn to look beneath the behaviour before rushing to judgement, blame and disruption.

02/06/2026

A space to be you

20/05/2026

12/05/2026

03/04/2026

When you’re not ok unless you’re making sure they’re ok.

01/04/2026

And/ or trauma?

16/03/2026

It makes it so much easier if we stop worrying about how wrong we think others might be

14/03/2026

When we've grown up with pain as our normative experience, and without kindness and empathy in response to that pain, it makes sense that we turn to pain as a self-regulation strategy.

Read more in my blog post 'Meeting pain with pain': https://www.carolynspring.com/blog/meeting-pain-with-pain