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Therapeutic Care

The Assessment & Therapy team seeks to provide the holistic needs required, firmly rooted in an evidenced-based approach to meet the needs of the children, young people, their carers and referring agencies.

About our Therapeutic Care service

Five Rivers’ Assessment & Therapy services have developed out of the need to ‘transform the lives of children and young people’, focusing on those who were accessing our specialist integrated education, residential and fostering services. Regionally based, we have developed a network of experienced, qualified professionals from psychology, psychotherapy, counselling and psychiatry backgrounds.

The service aims to improve outcomes relating to emotional well-being and mental health in children and young people, and our search for continuous improvement has been demonstrated by our commitment to having our work validated by external researchers at University College London.

Our Therapeutic team

Our practitioners have expertise in the areas of developmental trauma, disrupted attachments, parenting, fostering, adoption and residential services. Our permanent members of staff are complemented by a group of regionally located affiliates, enabling us to provide further assessments and interventions for a wide range of presenting needs.

In the same spirit of collaboration, we work closely with other Five Rivers’ teams and foster carers to ensure every child and young person receives consistent, nurturing care that meets their emotional, developmental and psychological needs.

Therapy & Intervention

We aim to ensure that children, carers and staff are supported within their placements to reduce the risk of a placement breaking down, resulting in further disrupted relationships and loss for the child or young person. As a service, we strive to be proactive rather than reactive, aiming to create and grow stability from an early stage.

We try to empower those who are working with children on the front line. We believe that a child’s foster carer, key worker or residential team are the best forms of intervention for the child, providing necessary authoritative parenting, commitment, consistency, sensitivity and attunement.

We offer a range of psychological interventions to children and young people, foster carers and adoptive parents. Our interventions are based on the needs of the client and draw from an eclectic range of psychological approaches including:

Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (DDP)

Treatment based on a theoretical understanding of attachment and inter-subjective relationships aimed at supporting children and young people who have experienced substantial developmental trauma.

Play Therapy

A form of therapy in which play is used as a means of helping the client to express and communicate their feelings.

Attachment Regulation Competency (ARC)

A framework to support children, young people and their families with experiences of prolonged traumatic stress.

Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR)

Psycho-therapeutic treatment designed to alleviate distress associated with traumatic memories.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)

Talking therapy which encourages the client to manage their difficulties by changing the way they think and subsequently behave.

Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (TF-CBT)

Therapy which aims to address the needs of children and adults suffering from difficulties related to traumatic life events.

Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT)

A multi-modal approach using compassionate mind training to help the client develop a soothing inner warmth and safety, via compassion and self-compassion.

Video Interaction Guidance

Therapeutic intervention where the practitioner aims to enhance the client’s communication within relationships, helping them to actively engage in change, ultimately working towards defining values and beliefs around respect and empowerment.

Mentalisation-based Approach

Encouraging the client to think about thinking; helping the client to make sense of how their thoughts, beliefs and feelings are linked to their actions and behaviours.

Psychodynamic Approaches

Approaches emphasising the psychological forces that underlie human behaviour, emotions, feelings and how they might relate to, and be shaped by, early experiences.

The key to unlocking each child’s potential

We aim to maximise every child and young person’s potential, and by focusing on the care they receive we not only help them to achieve, but to recover from the impact of ACEs. After years of possible trauma, rejection and hurt, we seek to instil a sense of belonging and positivity.

If you’d like to find out more about our Therapeutic Care services or would like to make a referral, please contact us.

Make a referral

Do you know a particular child or young person who you feel would benefit from the care and provision we offer.

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