The traumas experienced by children and young people who enter the care system include the breakdown of primary caring relationships, and may be compounded by maltreatment, domestic violence, and the impact of mental illness. Foster care and adoption provide new relationships and opportunities for recovery, but life in the care system can also face children and young people with the stresses of prolonged uncertainty and disrupted relationships.
Understanding the impact of early experience and disrupted attachments is central to supporting children’s capacity for recovery from trauma. Children who cannot rely on consistent parental care develop ways of managing uncontained anxieties and fears in order to cope. These defences can then prevent children from making the new relationships which are essential for recovery.
As well as offering individual therapeutic work for children and young people I can offer consultation to teachers, care staff, foster carers and agencies involved with the child, to further support them in understanding the child’s behaviour and the response to that child.
Consultations can be tailored as a one off meeting or as part of regular meetings depending on what would be most helpful.

For further information please refer to:
www.childpsychotherapy.org.uk
“Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy with Fostered and Adopted Children”