AN art psychotherapist living close to Grenfell Tower has set up a group helping assist traumatised children and teenagers.

Susan Rudnik, who has worked for the Teapot Trust since 2016, usually supports children with chronic illness and psychological trauma at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital.

But having seen the devastation caused by the fire in the London high rise building, Susan was moved to help.

The Teapot Trust was set up by Dr Laura Young MBE and her husband Dr John Young after seeing their daughter Verity treated at Glasgow's old Yorkhill hospital.

Laura was named the Evening Times Scotswoman of the Year this year for her work in the face of the death of eight-year-old Verity, who suffered from Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE Lupus) and cancer.

Thanks to funding from The Teapot Trust, Susan has established the Art Therapy Hub within the ClementJames Centre based in North Kensington.

She said: “The children just have some art materials and they're free to do whatever they want to.

"That's been enormously helpful in this crisis and trauma whereby the children are just allowed a space to process their feelings through the art when words really aren't enough or even possible quite a lot of the time.

"The tower features in a lot of their drawings because it's there, it's in everybody's eye shot. It's in everything, it's everywhere we look, it's everywhere we go.

"But also, there's a lot of other stuff, there's indescribable things, a lot of mess-making, a lot of stuff that's just processing which isn't pretty pictures or even horrible pictures, it's just something in the art materials themselves that really make it possible for the children to process some of their feelings in a very visceral way."

The Teapot Trust is Scotland’s largest employer of clinically trained art therapists, with 17 art therapists running 22 projects in 11 towns and cities from Inverness to the Borders.

It has also expanded into England, with two projects running for children at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital and Great Ormond Street Hospital.

Laura said: “Susan Rudnick has dedicated her career to art therapy.

"She is an expert in her field and must be commended for her tenacity and fortitude in reaching out to support others when she herself has witnessed such a tragedy first-hand.

“The Teapot Trust needs to continue its support of the Grenfell tragedy through art therapy.

"We are submitting an application for grants to Comic Relief and to the London Community Fund, which is supported by Simon Cowell who raised funds with the release of the charity single."

To make donations to The Teapot Trust see www.teapot-trust.org/donate-now/ or call 0131 273 4340.