Training & Consultation
Children in Care, Fostering, Adoption and Residential Services
Evolving Families offers training, consultation and reflective practice for organisations and professionals supporting children and young people in care.
This includes support for residential children’s homes, fostering agencies, adoptive families, kinship carers, local authorities, schools and wider professional networks.
Children and young people who have experienced trauma, disrupted attachments, instability, adversity or significant changes in relationships may communicate distress in many different ways. This can include emotional dysregulation, withdrawal, mistrust, avoidance, control, anger, risk-taking, self-harm, difficulties accepting care, or behaviour that feels difficult for adults to understand.
Our work helps adults and teams move beyond simply managing behaviour. We support carers, staff and professionals to develop a shared psychological understanding of what may sit beneath the behaviour, and to respond with greater consistency, confidence and curiosity.
What we offer
- Psychological consultation for carers, staff and professional networks
- Reflective practice for residential teams, fostering teams or wider services
- Trauma and attachment-informed formulation
- Support with care planning and therapeutic planning
- Consultation around behaviour that is difficult to understand
- Support around emotional regulation and co-regulation
- Advice around placement stability, transitions and relational repair
- Training for carers, residential teams, schools and professional services
- Supervision or consultation for managers, keyworkers or service leads
- Attendance at professional meetings where agreed
- Psychological assessment or direct therapy where commissioned separately
- Bespoke support packages for residential providers, fostering agencies or multi-home organisations
The exact support offered will depend on the child or young person’s needs, the setting, the professional network and the level of therapeutic input required.
Our approach
Our approach is formulation-led rather than session-led. This means we do not begin with a fixed programme or assume that every child needs the same type of support. Instead, we start by understanding the child or young person’s experiences, strengths, relationships, presentation and current environment.
We aim to understand:
- What may have happened to the child or young person
- What their behaviour may be communicating
- How trauma, attachment, neurodivergence, cognition, relationships and environment may interact
- What helps the child feel safe, regulated and understood
- What may be maintaining distress or difficulty
- What the adults around the child need in order to respond consistently
- What support is needed at individual, carer, team and system level
The aim is to translate psychological understanding into practical approaches that can be used in everyday care.
How consultation can help
Consultation can be helpful when a child, young person, family or professional network is not ready for direct therapy, or where the adults around the child need space to think together.
Consultation may focus on:
- Behaviour that feels challenging or confusing
- Anger, distress or emotional overwhelm
- Self-harm or risk-related concerns
- Dissociation or shutdown
- Splitting between carers, staff or professional teams
- Placement stress or instability
- Trauma and attachment-related needs
- School or education concerns
- Neurodevelopmental needs, including autism or ADHD
- How to respond consistently across the team or network
Consultation may be offered as a one-off discussion or as ongoing support for a child, family, team or service.
Support for residential children’s homes
For residential providers, we can offer different levels of psychological input depending on the needs of the home. This may include regular consultation, reflective practice, manager or service-lead supervision, psychological formulation, therapeutic planning, professional liaison, training and embedded psychological support.
Some homes may need occasional consultation to help staff think psychologically about complex behaviour. Others may benefit from a more active therapeutic partnership, where psychology contributes to formulation, planning, review and the wider professional system. Some services may require a more embedded model, with regular psychological presence in the home and ongoing clinical oversight.
We work collaboratively with each service to agree the most appropriate model.
Support for fostering, adoption and kinship care
We also support foster carers, adoptive parents, kinship carers and the professionals around them. This work may include consultation, therapeutic parenting guidance, attachment and trauma-informed formulation, reflective practice, support around behaviour and regulation, and advice around the relational needs of the child.
The aim is to help carers and professionals understand what the child may be communicating, respond in ways that build safety and trust, and strengthen the relationships that support recovery and development.
Training and workforce development
Training can be delivered as a standalone service or alongside consultation and therapeutic support.
Training topics may include:
- Attachment and developmental trauma
- Therapeutic parenting and PACE
- Nurturing attachments
- Understanding trauma and adversity
- Autism and ADHD
- Supporting neurodivergent children and young people
- Complex behaviour
- Emotional regulation and co-regulation
- Therapeutic observation
- Responding to self-harm
- Bespoke training tailored to service need
Our training is practical, psychologically informed and designed to connect theory with everyday care.
Working with Evolving Families
We usually begin with a conversation to understand:
- The child or young person’s needs
- The current concerns or referral questions
- The support already in place
- The strengths and pressures within the care system
- The needs of carers, staff or professionals
- Whether consultation, training, therapeutic planning, direct work or assessment would be most helpful
Following this, we can recommend a suitable level of support and agree the next steps.
