We offer one of the best family therapy sessions around

Working with families across many local authorities including  Middlesbrough Redcar & Cleveland Local Authoritity 

Intensive Family Interventions – How We Work With Families In Need

Maintaining placement stability is the primary goal for all agencies who work with children and young people who are looked after and accommodated. Especially important is the role of supporting foster parents to understand the impact of early attachment ruptures in a child’s life. Early trauma and separation disrupts the child’s emotional attachments that have formed with parents and caregivers and therefore adopted children have often developed certain coping mechanisms that means they can find it difficult to form relationships and display challenging behaviour.

There are three main areas we consider when working with families in need:

• having a Network Team around the child that understands emotional, cognitive, behavioural, social, educational and developmental needs within the context of their life experience is vital.
• creating a reflective space and encouraging inter-agency working leads to the development of a cohesive team. This space provides an opportunity for all involved to collectively think psychologically about the young person’s past, its impact on the present and the possibilities for the future.
• caring for a child who has experienced trauma and loss can at times be extremely challenging and impacts on the foster carers stress levels and confidence. 

Therapeutic reflective spaces go a long way to help support carers with the complex needs, transference and counter transference that inevitably occurs within these relationships. Evidenced-based psychotherapeutic interventions offered are:

• Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) Child and Adult
• Dyadic Development Psychotherapy (DDP) Level 1 and 2 
• Attachment Informed Therapy 
• Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) 
• Mindfulness Based Therapy (Smiling Mind) 
• Systemic Family Therapy 
• Solution Focused Brief Therapy 
• Play Therapy 
• Rogerian Relationship Psychotherapy

The Assessment Process

This involves gathering key historical information to plan and submit a case formulation. Essential components will be:

• Considering the child’s view
• The early attachment history
• Past and current parenting styles
• Understanding of the family dynamics
• Family’s current strengths and difficulties
• Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire assessment tool
• CORE YP young people’s evidenced-based assessment tool
• Identifying Goal Based Therapeutic Outcomes
• A clear understanding of what the adoptive/foster parent/carers would like to happen