Child & Adolescent Psychotherapist · York & Harrogate

Olga Heleno Walker

MBACP integrative psychotherapy for children, adolescents and young people across York, Harrogate & North Yorkshire

Olga Heleno Walker, child and adolescent psychotherapist

About

A safe space for children and young people to be heard

Olga Heleno Walker is an MBACP-registered integrative child and adolescent psychotherapist (ages 4–25) working across York, Harrogate and North Yorkshire, as well as offering online sessions. Her practice is trauma-informed, with extensive experience of working with young people affected by adverse childhood experiences (ACEs).

She also works regularly with neurodivergent children and young people, whether their neurodivergence is suspected or formally diagnosed. In practice, this means the room, the pace and the format of a session flex around the child, rather than the child being expected to fit a standard talking-therapy model.

Olga also takes a systemic view of each child and young person. A young person's difficulties rarely exist in isolation from what's happening around them, and she works to understand each child within that fuller picture rather than treating the presenting problem on its own. This could mean working across multi-agency settings, liaising with schools, GPs, CAMHS, social workers and other professionals involved in a child's care, so that the support around a child is joined up rather than fragmented.

Olga trained through Place2Be in London, one of the UK's leading children's mental health charities, completing a Level 7 Postgraduate Diploma in Counselling and Psychotherapy for Children and Young People. She currently works as a school counsellor at St Aidan's Church of England High School in Harrogate, and has previously worked as a counsellor in both primary (ages 4–11) and secondary (11–18) schools in London.

Before retraining as a psychotherapist, Olga spent over a decade in the corporate world, in consultancy and banking. She is multi-cultural and has lived in over ten countries, a background that has proved useful in setting up a school counselling practice from scratch, and which gives her a broad frame of reference to draw on when working with children and young people.

Approach

How Olga works

Trauma-informed. Before anything else, Olga works from the assumption that behaviour makes sense in context. This shapes everything from how a first session is paced to how endings are handled.

Neurodivergence-aware. For neurodivergent young people, therapy that assumes eye contact, sitting still, or verbal processing can often present obstacles to the therapeutic process. Olga adapts session structure, sensory environment and communication style to the individual child rather than asking them to mask or perform in the room.

Led by the child, with play as a tool. Some children and young people talk. Others need to draw, build, play, or move. Olga draws on play within her integrative approach, following whichever route each individual prefers to use to process.

Integrative, not one-size-fits-all. She draws on a range of therapeutic approaches (psychodynamic, attachment-based, cognitive-behavioural, mindfulness-informed) and lets the child's age, history and presentation determine which of these leads at any given time.

Systemic, not just individual. Olga looks at the young person in the context of their family, school and wider world, rather than in isolation. Where it's helpful, this means working alongside parents, teachers, GPs and social workers to improve the robustness of support.

Safe and consistent. Trust is built and earned. Olga offers a steady, confidential relationship and works alongside parents, carers and schools where necessary, while protecting the young person's confidence.

Anxiety & worry Low mood Anger & frustration Trauma & adverse experiences Neurodivergence Bereavement & loss Family change Friendships Self-esteem School-related worries Emotional regulation

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