A LEYTONSTONE woman is bound for a small Transylvanian town to help counsel orphans, using life-sized puppets. CLAIRE HACK finds out more.

JUDE Kidd, 62, of Guernsey Road, Leytonstone, is a dramatherapist and creative arts supervisor who works with troubled adults and children.

She trained in 1983, after a five-year stint as a nurse, to combine her passion for drama and helping people and now works from her home, offering counselling for a variety of problems.

Mrs Kidd is to travel to the Rowan Centre, in Zarnesti, central Romania during the summer and will work as a supervisor on a volunteer programme to provide dramatherapy for orphans.

Mrs Kidd said: “I'll be supervising the other therapists – creative arts therapists, play therapists and sports and activity workers.

“The thing about these puppets is that they've got moveable tongues – the children can poke the tongue out if they're feeling angry.”

Each puppet is roughly the size of a small child and has its own “personality”, Mrs Kidd said, and the children often become attached.

“They might identify with hair colour or with facial features and clothing,” she said.

“These are orphans who may make inappropriate attachments to all sorts of people – we're teaching them to make appropriate attachments.”

Using dramatherapy with both children and adults, which is still relatively uncommon in the UK, she uses dolls, puppets, musical instruments and clay to help them work through problems.

“People particularly like using the clay – it's particularly good for expressing really intense feeling if somebody doesn't want to speak,” she said.

She leaves for Romania this month and will work with Sue Jennings, a renowned dramatherapist.

“She's a pioneer in this country and I do my continuing professional development with her.”

To find out more, contact Mrs Kidd via email on judecreative@tiscali.co.uk, or visit the British Association of Drama Therapists (BADth) website at badth.org.uk