We were pleased to be able to host events online and at the House of Lords in 2023, here’s a roundup of the topics and discussion points. In addition to our ongoing lobbying and campaign work (which is less visible) we are planning four new events for 2024.
Stable Safe Homes Built on love. Is Love Enough?
Early in 2023 the Government published its strategy for Children’s services in response to the Independent Children’s Care Review and put it out for consultation. (“Stable Safe Homes Built on Love”) IRCT believes that proper recognition of the role of trauma in the lives of children in care is essential to provide better outcomes for them.
We held a Best Practice Forum in March 2023 at the House of Lords where we shared the IRCT response to this document and asked the question “Is Love Enough? Dr Chris Nicholson, Senior Lecturer Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies University of Essex, set out some of the difficulties faced by children in care and those who care for them and shared a therapeutic model designed to address the underlying trauma needs that the children bring with them. Whilst there was general agreement that safe homes built on love are essential to provide the security necessary to enable children to recover from adversity in their early lives it is also clear that love alone is insufficient and those charged with the responsibility for their care require good training and support to achieve this.
Dr Chris Nicholson – Senior Lecturer, Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Essex and Chair of The Consortium of Therapeutic Communities
Click to view Dr Chris Nicholson’s presentation
Link to our response to Children’s Social Care Review
Therapeutic Childcare-Good Enough. Better. Best.
Developing best practice in Therapeutic Child Care: Skilling the Workforce
We built on the theme of training and support at our next event held at the House of Lords in July 2023 when we ran a Best Practice Forum for practitioners, managers, trainers and policy makers concerned with the development of a workforce equipped to meet the therapeutic needs of some of the most damaged children in our society. The panel of speakers included those responsible for creating some of the first dedicated University Courses for workers providing therapeutic childcare together with The Royal College of Psychiatry Manager for quality improvement, standards and accreditation for therapeutic child care and therapeutic communities.
IRCT will be facilitating some further Roundtable Discussions with the presenters from this event and others to develop a position statement to use for lobbying parliament about the need to create recognised and approved training courses for those providing therapeutic child care.
Introducing and Assessing the Impact of a Trauma Informed Approach in Education
IRCT has a Campaign running to work towards the elimination of permanent exclusions from school and to this end we are promoting approaches that aim to be inclusive and that cater for the needs of all children and young people.
Josh Tyers Head of School at Biscovey Academy in Cornwall has successfully introduced a trauma informed approach in his school and he provided an inspiring account of this at an online IRCT event held in November 2023.
