Toucan for children was set up in 2010 to meet the needs of children who are experiencing emotional difficulties in their lives. Since then we have helped over 500 children and their families overcome those difficulties.

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The idea for Toucan came about when Janice Watkins and Angie Beard, Toucan’s founders identified that there was a lack of front line services responding to children’s emotional needs, which provided the impetus for them to retrain as Play Therapists and set up Toucan for Children.

 

Combined they have over 40 years of experience working with children and families through social work, probation and family court welfare and during this time they recognised the negative consequences for children who did not get appropriate emotional/ mental health support when it was needed. These consequences often had a long-term effect on the children, their families and wider-society. There was a huge unmet need for therapeutic services for children.  They decided they wanted to develop an affordable and accessible therapeutic service which respected the uniqueness of each child.