CHILDREN In CARE
Services supporting children looked after
We specialise in working with Children Looked after by Local Authorities including children who have been fostered and adopted or looked after in residential care settings. We specialise in offering a DDP/PACE "attachment and trauma" informed therapeutic approach.
We support Foster Care and Adoption Agencies, Residential Care Services, Local Authority groups including social workers, Adoption teams and SGO teams. We have a long history of working with children and young people with attachment and trauma.
Dr Wendy Coetzee's has expertise in setting up and developing services for children and young people with attachment and trauma based difficulties. This has spanned private and public sector settings as Consultant Clinical Psychologist, a UK DDP (PACE) approved Trainer, former Clinical Director of a National residential care children's service and now Director and founder of her own training and therapy practice The Foundations Consultancy LTD.
Wendy's enthusiasm for supporting those who support looked after children has spanned over 20 years. Wendy won an "Innovation in Practice" award from the British Psychological Society for developing PACE training for birth families in 2014 supported by Dr Kim Golding, CBE. Her enthusiasm and creative energy for developing services to support staff, parents and carers enable her to deliver training using a broad range of skills as a trainer and Clinical Psychologist.
We can offer:
- Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (DDP): for children/young people and their parents, supporting parents to develop securely attached relationships with their children and enabling the child to process and overcome the impact of early relational trauma and attachment difficulties. To find out more see our DDP therapy Section.
- Therapeutic Parenting Consultations: 1:1 sessions and groups for parents/carers/staff facilitated by Wendy supporting parents/carers in adopting a PACE parenting approach to supporting their child/ren and young people (See Therapeutic Parent workshops).
- Foundations for Attachment - 3 day PACE Therapeutic Parent Training: Courses to support adoptive, foster and SGO parents and residential carers to understand their children using an attachment and trauma informed lens and supporting them to adopt a PACE parenting approach.(See PACE Training)
- Therapeutic Parenting Support Groups: Groups for parents caring for fostered, adopted, Kinship, SGO children. Offering parents an opportunity to reflect on their experiences, support one another and needing support to adopt a therapeutic parenting approach.
- Adopting an Attachment and Trauma informed approach: supporting Social Workers, Mental health workers (Psychiatric nurses, OT's, Psychologists, Play therapists and Support workers) to adopt an. attachment and trauma informed approach to working with children and families with complex emotional needs.
Our aim
Our aim is to give staff working with looked after children the support to help these young people with their mental health challenges. This may be a one off staff consultation or more regular supervision to support individual or teams with their personal development as part of their continued professional development.
To find out more please drop us a line to discuss your requirements
TRAINING COURSES
Attachment and Developmental Trauma Training - how relationships can heal.
This one day workshop offers delegates a comprehensive understanding of the importance of developing securely attached relationships with parents in early childhood. We explore how securely attached relationships are fundamental to the growth of a healthy and fully integrated brain.
We explore the impact of relationship trauma, neglect, abuse and domestic violence and the impact on a child's brain architecture and global development, helping us to understand how this can impact on the development of emotional regulation, social skills development and relational trauma. We explore how this early trauma can also lead to ongoing emotional, social and psychological difficulties leading to long term mental health difficulties and difficulties in developing trusting relationships.
We Cover:
- the importance of developing securely attached relationships in early childhood on the development of a healthy and integrated brain.
- the impact of relational trauma, neglect, abuse and domestic violence and how this can impact on a child's social, emotional and cognitive development.
- The impact of trauma on the the nervous system, vagus nerve and ongoing anxiety based difficulties.
- Developing an understanding of how trauma can lead to children and young people developing complex emotional, psychological and behavioural difficulties.
- The impact of trauma on emotional regulation and sensory difficulties.
- The impact of attachment difficulties in developing trusting and "emotionally connected" relationships.
- Adverse Childhood experiences (ACEs) and their long term impact on health and emotional and mental health and wellbeing.
- Understanding the importance of seeing children in the context of "what happened to you" rather than "whats wrong with you".
- We explore other mental health difficulties and ask if these can be understood using an attachment and trauma informed lens.
- We look at sensory integration models, the neuro-sequential model and the latest research on the impact of trauma on brain development.
- We also look at how to support young people with attachment and trauma based difficulties and support people to adopt a relational approach to support healing and recovery.
- Secondary trauma and how working with/caring for young people with trauma can impact on our own well being and mental health.
We help parents/carers to begin to understand children's complex and challenging behaviours using an attachment and trauma informed lens. We support you to think about how to apply this understanding in your relationship with your child/ren. Our workshop has a good blend of case material, multi-media clips and creative group exercises to help bring theory to life. We try to ensure our workshops are interactive and inspiring. Attachment and trauma informed understanding and practice can be transformational for health and child care professionals.
A one day course supporting staff to understand how relationship trauma, neglect, abuse and domestic violence can impact on the development a child's brain development. We explore how this early trauma can also lead to ongoing emotional, social and psychological difficulties, ACE's (Adverse Childhood Experiences) can lead to potential long term mental and physical health difficulties. We support parents to understand the impact of relational trauma on a child's ability to engage in trusting relationships and how this can also lead to the development of insecure attachment styles of relating to others. We also make sense of how early trauma can impact on emotional regulation, impulse control and other important relational experiences.
Parents and carers are often confronted with very challenging and emotionally dys-regulated children who have had a long history of abuse, neglect and trauma. These children whilst emotionally needy often present in ways to alienate carers from them and re-creating the same rejecting relationships they experienced in early childhood. In this training day we offer a workshop that enables staff from all sectors to understand developmental trauma and attachment in the context of brain development and relational trauma.
Staff in residential care settings support children and young people with the most complex emotional and psychological issues and they can often experience overwhelming emotions when trying to create relationships with the children they care for.
Consultation and Advice
Psychological Consultation: supporting you to support children and young people with attachment and
We can Offer either one off psychological consultations to parents/carers or staff supporting children with complex needs to understand the child/young person and the behaviours they are presenting with, or ongoing sessions.
We facilitate the space to reflect on the difficulties being experienced and enable parents/staff them to make sense of the issues using an attachment understanding and psychological formulation to guide successful engagement with the child.
Regular consultations can enable a staff team/parents to adopt a more psychologically informed therapeutic approach thereby ensuring the child has the most optimal chance of developing emotionally. Regular consultation with a Clinical Psychologist can ensure that parents/carers/staff can apply an attachment and trauma informed approach to their work with young people. Parents/carers can bring their concerns that they have in managing the young people and together develop a psychological formulation of the young persons difficulties with psychological advice regarding how to understand, respond to and manage these difficulties.
- Regular consultations can support the development of therapeutically informed practice and help to embed PACE training when it has been delivered to staff helping them to develop competency in this attachment and trauma informed approach.
- These consultations can ensure that you have an opportunity to reflect on your own emotional needs, this can prevent staff burn out and ensure that the young people’s difficulties are being given thorough clinical consideration.
Consultation is most successful when a team have been given the training offered by the Foundations Consultancy on attachment and developmental trauma, PACE therapeutic re-parenting supported by Supervision/Reflective Practice Training for staff.
This therapeutically informed model to support therapeutic practice in residential care homes is well recognised by OFSTED and Wendy's experience of developing therapeutic models for Residential care companies has been recognised in quality ratings by OFSTED.
Support for Foster Carers, Adoptive Parents and Special Guardianship/Kinship Care
We recognise the importance of supporting adoptive parents, foster carers, SGO's and Kinship carers. Caring for children and young people who have been removed from their birth families and adopted, fostered or placed with family members (SGO/Kinship Care) can be challenging and yet also rewarding. Children who have experienced the loss of their birth family as well as other family and relationship trauma can present with complex attachment and developmental trauma difficulties. This can make parenting a challenging experience for even the most experienced of parents/carers.
Dr Wendy Coetzee, has specialised in supporting parents and carers of children and young people looked after for over 20 years, she is supported by Dr Kim Golding (CBE) and a registered member of DDP connects UK. We recognise that children who are removed from their families have often been significantly traumatised emotionally as a result of their childhood experiences of abuse, neglect and/or relational trauma. As such these children often present with significantly challenging behaviour, a mistrust of adults and can be afraid to develop emotional connection with others because of their experiences. These children can be difficult to support and can evoke powerful emotions in their parents as they try to develop emotionally connected and trusting relationships/secure attachments with them.
Parents/Carers often approach their role with expectations of being able to love and care for these vulnerable children using typical parenting approaches, but they can find themselves confused and bewildered as these parenting approaches/strategies are not successful in managing their child/ren's complex emotions and behaviours.
Therapeutic parenting is now widely recognised as being important in supporting children with developmental trauma and attachment difficulties. Our experience in therapeutic parenting has been developed over 15 years and has been successfully taught and embedded through workshops, training courses and one to one sessions with large and small groups of adoptive parents, kinship carers, residential care workers and SGO parents. We recognise that in order to successfully parent these children you need support to understand their complex needs and develop the therapeutic parenting skills. This will enable you to develop a good understanding of your child/ren in the context of their early developmental trauma, their ‘insecure’ attachment styles and the impact that this can have on the developing child cognitively, socially and emotionally. We are here to support you to become therapeutic parents offering your child/ren and young people an attachment and trauma informed PACE parenting approach which can support the building of more secure, trusting and emotionally connected relationships. (For more information see PACE Training)
We can support you as parents/carers using individual one to one ‘attachment focused’ DDP therapeutic parenting sessions or small and informal therapeutic parent/carer groups. These sessions will support you to understand your child/ren/young person using an attachment and trauma informed understanding.
This approach can help traumatised children to begin to develop trusting and ‘secure’ attachments. Parents/carers can also explore their own emotional responses to the child and make sense of these in a safe, reflective and nurturing environment. Our therapeutic Parenting workshops and training days are available as individual one to one and group sessions. These can also be funded using ASF with the support of your Social worker. We have relationships with a wide range of local authorities.
See our workshops on Therapeutic Parenting and Attachment and trauma
We are fully accredited
PACE Training Residential Care Staff
Places still available on 19/20th March and 9/10th April 2025 in Warwickshire