In this event, Karen talked about her experience of working with children & adolescents around the world who have experienced trauma, her current work here in the UK, and how this has informed her research and writing.
Course Content
Presenter
I am a Highly Specialist Clinical Psychologist who has worked in the NHS (National Health System) and children’s services for several years. I have also worked cross-culturally in both Africa and Asia with groups ranging from former child soldiers to survivors of the Rwandan Genocide.
I have extensive experience in the areas of trauma, parenting, and attachment, and work clinically using a range of therapeutic approaches with families, systems, and children in or on the edge of care, unaccompanied asylum-seeking young people, and adopted children.
In addition to holding a doctorate in Clinical psychology, I have also undergone a range of specialist training courses including EMDR, Narrative Therapy, Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy, Video Interaction Guidance, and Theraplay.
I have previously worked in both Milton Keynes’s and Kensington and Chelsea’s LAC (Looked after Children) and fostering services, and within the National Implementation Service for evidence-based interventions for Looked after children, children on the edge of care, and children in custody at the Michael Rutter Centre in the Maudsley Hospital; and as Clinical Lead for a court assessment and intensive intervention team for children on the edge of care and in proceedings in Islington.
I am the director of Safe Hands and Thinking Minds training and consultancy services (www.safehandsthinkingminds.co.uk).
I’m also an external consultant, trainer, and assessor to a variety of local authorities and organizations including Barnardos Adoption Service, PAC-UK, AdoptionPlus, Pause, Grandparents Plus, Three Steps Ireland, Hope for families, and the Fostering Network, as well as a member of the CoramBAAF health group advisory committee, and a reviewer for the Journal of Adoption and Fostering.
I regularly attend and present at local, national, and international trauma, parenting, and attachment conferences.
I am the author of “Working with Relational and Developmental Trauma in Children and Adolescents” (Routledge, 2016) and “A Therapeutic Treasure Box for Working with Children and Adolescents with Developmental Trauma: Creative Techniques and Activities” which is NOW AVAILABLE; as well as the designer of “A Therapeutic Treasure Deck of Sentence Completion and Feelings Cards“.
