Category: Foster Care & OOHC | The Secure Start Podcast
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Therapeutic Love In Residential Child Care, with Kate Brown
The word “love” can feel risky in child protection, but we keep coming back to it because the best care is never just a checklist. I’m joined by Kate Brown, an attachment-based psychoanalytic psychotherapist and supervisor, former therapeutic community practitioner, and editor-in-chief of the Attachment journal. Kate also completed a PhD on the Cotswold Community,…
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The Work You Cannot Leave At The Door, with Marie Clutton
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in Child Protection Services | The Secure Start Podcast, Developmental Trauma | The Secure Start Podcast, Foster Care & OOHC | The Secure Start Podcast, Reflective Practice | The Secure Start Podcast, Residential Child Care | The Secure Start Podcast, Social Care Management | The Secure Start PodcastWorking in residential care with boys and young men who have experienced trauma and displayed harmful sexual behaviour changes you, and that is one of the most honest truths shared on the Secure Start Podcast. Marie Clutton reflects on how people often assume they can “leave the job at the door”, yet therapeutic childcare rarely…
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Reclaimed Belonging, with Richard Rollinson
A child disappears into the underside of a foam settee, furious when the adults cannot find her. Another child “loses” Super Ted again and again, and what looks like chaos turns into a quiet test: will you come looking, will you bring me back, will I still belong? I sit down for the second instalment…
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Caring Means Holding Grief Without Turning Punitive, with Richard Rollinson
Care gets framed as gentle and cosy, but that story falls apart the moment you work closely with children who have lived through fear, loss and disruption. I sit down with Richard Rollinson for another instalment of objects that help use remember and think, to explore a tougher, more honest view: care as something we…
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A Big Heart And Spare Room Is Not A Care Plan, with Gareth K Thomas
Foster care is often sold with comforting slogans, but trauma-informed care demands something far more honest. Gareth K. Thomas, a former foster parent turned foster care consultant, argues that recruitment messaging like “a big heart and a spare room” actively harms placement stability because it attracts good people who are unprepared for developmental trauma, neglect,…
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Small Moments Build Safety And Hope, with Mary-anne Hodd
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in Care Leavers & Aftercare | The Secure Start Podcast, Care-Experienced Voices | The Secure Start Podcast, Child Protection Services | The Secure Start Podcast, Foster Care & OOHC | The Secure Start Podcast, Residential Child Care | The Secure Start Podcast, Trauma Informed Care | The Secure Start Podcast, Trauma Informed Practice | The Secure Start PodcastA child can walk into a house with a full fridge and a clean bed and still feel terrified. That’s the gap we’re trying to close, and it’s why this conversation matters. I’m joined by Mary-anne Hodd, founder of Journeys That Care, a CPD accredited training and consultancy that blends lived experience with psychology, teaching,…
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What Children In Care Say Matters Most – Lisa Holmes
Rethinking Outcomes In Care Children’s social care often treats “outcomes” as whatever can be counted: placement moves, school results, budgets, compliance targets. In this Secure Start Podcast conversation, Colby Pearce and Professor Lisa Holmes push back on that narrow frame and argue for trauma-informed care that starts with care-experienced voices. When we ask children and…
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I am seen, so I am*
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in Developmental Trauma | The Secure Start Podcast, Foster Care & OOHC | The Secure Start Podcast, Psychotherapy, Reactive Attachment Disorder | The Secure Start Podcast, Residential Child Care | The Secure Start Podcast, Social Care Management | The Secure Start Podcast, Trauma Informed Care | The Secure Start Podcast, Trauma Informed Practice | The Secure Start PodcastIf A Child Breaks A Window What Are They Saying? Trauma-informed care starts with a shift in how we interpret behaviour. Instead of treating aggression, withdrawal, stealing, or rule-breaking as problems to stamp out, we can see them as communication and as an urgent attempt to secure a missing relational experience. In therapeutic communities like…
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Whose Truth Becomes A Child’s Story?
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Therapeutic Life Story Work, with Professor Richard Rose Kids in care don’t just wonder where they lived. They wonder why it happened and far too often they land on the most painful answer: it must have been my fault. I’m joined by Professor Richard Rose, founder of Therapeutic Life Story Work International, to talk about…
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How Barbara Docker-Drysdale Built Therapeutic Skill In Care Teams – John Whitwell
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in Foster Care & OOHC | The Secure Start Podcast, Leadership in Children’s Services | The Secure Start Podcast, Residential Child Care | The Secure Start Podcast, Social Care Management | The Secure Start Podcast, Supervision in Social Care | The Secure Start Podcast, Trauma Informed Care | The Secure Start Podcast, Trauma Informed Management | The Secure Start Podcast, Trauma Informed Practice | The Secure Start PodcastThe Consultant Who Changed A Community Barbara Docker-Drysdale, often called Mrs D or Pip, shaped modern therapeutic communities by focusing less on “fixing” children directly and more on building therapeutic skill in the adults around them. At the Cotswold Community she was brought in as a consultant psychotherapist to work primarily with staff teams, meeting…
