Category: Reflective Practice | The Secure Start Podcast
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Healthy Teams Deliver Healing, with Simon Benjamin
Therapeutic care lives or dies on what the organisation does when things get hard. In this conversation, we explore why trauma informed therapeutic care is not just a practice approach on the floor, but an organisational discipline that starts with leadership. When leaders can name the primary task, keep the strategy clear, and make psychological…
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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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Rethinking Harmful Sexual Behaviour In Kids, with Alan Jenkins
Why do some young people exhibit this behaviour, and how to respond therapeutically What if the most effective way to reduce harmful sexual behaviour in young people isn’t tougher punishment, but deeper connection? I sat down with Alan Jenkins, renowned practitioner and author of Becoming Ethical: A Parallel Political Journey With Men Who Have Abused,…
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From Chaos To Calm: Routines, Relationships, And Real Change In Residential Care, Tom Ellison
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in Developmental Trauma | The Secure Start Podcast, Foster Care & OOHC | The Secure Start Podcast, Human Capital & Workforce | The Secure Start Podcast, Leadership in Children’s Services | The Secure Start Podcast, Reflective Practice | 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 Management | The Secure Start PodcastFrom Chaos To Calm: Routines, Relationships, And Real Change In Residential Care Quality residential care for children who have experienced trauma starts long before any therapy session. It lives in the culture of the home, the clarity of purpose, and the daily rhythm that makes life predictable enough for healing to begin. Experienced organisations describe…
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Building Trauma Informed Leadership – A podcast interview with Tom Ellison
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in Child Protection Services | The Secure Start Podcast, Developmental Trauma | The Secure Start Podcast, Reflective Practice | The Secure Start Podcast, Residential Child Care | The Secure Start Podcast, Supervision in Social Care | The Secure Start Podcast, Trauma Informed Care | The Secure Start Podcast, Trauma Informed Practice | The Secure Start PodcastWhy Clear Primary Tasks And Brave Authority Transform Children’s Homes Clear leadership in children’s residential care starts with one deceptively simple question: what are we here for? Defining the primary task sounds easy, yet many leaders default to jargon or vague mission lines that can’t guide daily choices. When the work is complex and emotional,…
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Building Healthy Birth Family Connection – A podcast interview with Adriana Dias
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in Child Protection Services | The Secure Start Podcast, Developmental Trauma | The Secure Start Podcast, Family Preservation & Reunification | The Secure Start Podcast, Leadership in Children’s Services | The Secure Start Podcast, Reactive Attachment Disorder | The Secure Start Podcast, Reflective Practice | The Secure Start Podcast, Supervision in Social Care | The Secure Start Podcast, Trauma Informed Practice | The Secure Start PodcastHow a Reflective, Respectful Approach Helped Families Choose Healthier Relationships Child protection is often described with neat outcomes and rigid timelines, but the lived work rarely fits those lines. This episode explores a project in Portugal, Revira Volta, that set out to build healthier relationships between girls in residential care and their birth families by…
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Building Trauma Informed Schools – A podcast interview with Megan Corcoran
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in Developmental Trauma | The Secure Start Podcast, Leadership in Children’s Services | The Secure Start Podcast, Reactive Attachment Disorder | The Secure Start Podcast, Reflective Practice | The Secure Start Podcast, Trauma Informed Care | The Secure Start Podcast, Trauma Informed Practice | The Secure Start Podcast, Trauma-Informed Schools | The Secure Start PodcastHow supporting adults creates the safety children need to learn, belong, and heal Belonging sits at the heart of healing, and this conversation explores how schools can become places where children recover, learn, and feel seen—without asking teachers to be therapists. The core idea is simple: when adults in education and youth services feel supported,…