Reflective Practice for Professionals
Regular reflective practice sessions can support staff who are managing challenging and vulnerable high-need clients daily (adults or children/YPs) to do their best work and avoid burnout and blocked care.
My experience includes working with residential children’s home staff, and health, education, and care professionals. I count developmental trauma, neurodivergence particularly autism and especially when it is comorbid with trauma, attachment and child-parent relationships, selective mutism, anxiety and physical disabilities amongst my specialities.
My approach is trauma informed; I understand how trauma impacts the body-mind connection of the person with the trauma history but also their relationships with others. And I know that it is vital that people working with these clients and service users are willing and able to develop their self-awareness of their own blind spots and triggers, as well as the capacity to respond in the moment to the inner needs of the traumatised person when their behaviours may be disruptive and/or defensive.
I take a multi-level approach to working with staff teams or individuals, meaning that reflective practice sessions include:
- reflecting on their role and relationship to the adults/children in their care
- focusing on the thoughts, feelings and behaviours of the children/adults in their care
- taking into account how past and current life experiences may impact on the beliefs and behaviours of the adults/children in their care
- sharing information about and building on staff skills and knowledge of anxiety, grief, attachment, trauma, etc
- where relevant, identifying trauma informed practical strategies that can be implemented individually (and where appropriate, across the team) to support the development of healthier coping mechanisms in the people they work with
- helping staff understand blocked care and what self-care really looks like
- thinking about the influence of cultural and organisational issues on their work
I charge £120 per hour for team supervision (plus travel time and mileage if relevant). Please contact me to discuss your needs. I look forward to hearing from you.
Reflective Parenting
Parenting is one of the hardest jobs in the world! And the only guidance we receive on how to parent is the experiences of being parented that we gather during our own childhood. Sometimes, we know exactly how we don’t want to parent; but that doesn’t mean automatically that we know exactly what we need to do in order to parent the way we want to parent. All children are different, our relationships with them are different and even within a family, the temperaments of children can differ widely. Sometimes we as parents or our children can get stuck in certain ways of behaving individually and in relationships that leave everyone feeling unhappy and helpless.
If this is happening in your family, you might want to consider getting in some external help. I have several years’ experience of mentoring and supporting parents to help reduce or stop the conflicts and find a more peaceable and harmonious way forward. I help parents to think through what is happening in the family, what is going wrong and what needs some attention and perhaps new thinking. They usually come out of the process feeling much more confident about their parenting skills with a better understanding of how to keep the peace at home and enjoy family life.
If this is something that could help you and your family right now, please contact me to discuss your needs.