Therapeutic Care Blog
The CETC blog tells the stories behind 'what works' in Intensive Therapeutic Care
Behaviours that challenge: What has happened to you?
Children and young people living in Therapeutic Residential Care in Australia often present with a range of behaviours that challenge us. The complexity and difficulty in working with these challenging behaviours led us to write a Practice Guide: Behaviours that Challenge to assist therapeutic residential workers to better understand why young people might display these …
Read MoreAchieving Effective Supervision – Games That Supervisors Play
In the previous blog, we discussed how easy it is for the supervisor/supervisee relationship to be consciously or sub-consciously ambushed by power/defensive game play. Kadushin (1968) described games as repetitive patterns arising between supervisor and supervisee, where one or both players consciously or subconsciously adopt a strategy to maximise safety and minimise potential threat. Even …
Read MoreNeuroscience Meets Leadership
In this blog, I explore the relationship between neuroscience and leadership. The latest research in neuroscience tells us that our neurobiology is what drives our behaviour and defines how we, as leaders, make meaning, solve problems, and carry out tasks with others. First, a quick refresher on two critical areas of the brain that affect …
Read MoreWhat works? Promising Practices to Support Young People Who Self Harm
Why do young people in out of home care self-harm? What are the best predictors of suicide and self-harm? What really works when supporting young people who self-harm in out-of-home care? Our latest research brief looks at what the research has to say on these three questions. In this blog, I highlight a few promising …
Read MoreUnderstanding vicarious trauma and compassion fatigue
Research shows how profoundly influenced we are by other people’s emotional states and how rapidly our interpersonal affective responses occur, and how dynamically our physiology responds to others’ emotional states. This is why trauma can be emotionally contagious. I have experienced it personally. When I was working doing assessments of very violent and sexually abusive …
Read MoreClient Mix and Matching in Intensive Therapeutic Care
Young people living in residential care are highly vulnerable and have commonly experienced a significant level of trauma and abuse. They often present with complex needs and a range of risk-taking behaviours such as aggression, self-harm, sexualised behaviours, substance misuse and other activities that place themselves or others at risk. As such, it requires a …
Read MoreHow do you support staff feeling defeated and powerless? A Case Study
My work as a Therapeutic Specialist is about finding ways to equip and support staff to provide high-quality therapeutic care for young people living in Intensive Therapeutic Care homes. It is about sharing knowledge, facilitating reflective practice and, perhaps most importantly, holding the hope that positive change is possible. In this blog, I want to …
Read More‘Tis the Season to be Jolly’ – but not for everyone
It’s all too easy to get wrapped up in the fun and happiness of Christmas and forget that, for others, the season isn’t necessarily a joyful one. For some the young people in the ITC system, Christmas has not been a happy time and can bring back difficult memories. Arguments, violence or aggression in the …
Read MoreWhat is cultural safety?
“Our own culture is like water to fish. We live and breathe through it’ (Alf Bamblett, quoted in Krakouer, J., Wise, S., & Connolly, M 2018) Cultural Safety is used by organisations alongside Cultural Competency and Cultural Responsiveness to demonstrate their commitment to work and provide services which are welcoming and respectful of another …
Read MoreThe Intensive Therapeutic Care Dance
Therapeutic residential work can be conceptualised as a dance. It works best when therapeutic workers display therapeutic presence, are in sync with the young person, can making meaning of the young person’s behaviour and responses and work in a climate that supports therapeutic care. At its best, therapeutic residential work is a process of synchronised …
Read More