About Us
We are a small team based in Derby with over 50 years’ experience between us. Our roots are in local authority work with both our directors Dr Jen Bradley (clinical psychologist) and Sarah Rist (independent social worker) having been part of an innovative edge of care team that came out of the Department of Education Innovation Fund Reclaiming Social Work project in 2015-2016.
Our team includes a clinical psychologist, social workers, assistant psychologists and an administrator. We work at any threshold - Child Protection, PLO or in care proceedings. We also work with adoptive families and long-term foster carers where there is a risk of breakdown and can support reunification plans for a child in care returning to birth family. We are also working within three local authority residential homes for children, working collaboratively with residential staff to meet the needs of the young people.
We have an innovative approach which allows us to adapt and mould our support to each individual family or to any social care delivery problem. Through continuing direct work we have constantly learned and adapted our approach to better meet the needs of young people and families/ carers and have developed an effective model for working with families to address key safeguarding concerns. We have a way of problem solving and coming up with different ways of working; we thrive on challenge and can think outside the box to drive progress and better outcomes. With our approach we:
Do not need things to be stable, we are there to create stability.
Explore any concerns or barriers around the engagement of a carer/ parent.
Understand the complexity of risk when making life-changing decisions about children and appreciate the experiences of social workers trying to navigate this complexity.
Believe that, with the right therapeutic support, more children can be helped to stay safely at home.