Transformative Supervision for the Helping Professions – An Interview with Nicki Weld

“As I talk about in the book, my best transformative moments in supervision both as a supervisor and supervisee have come from boldness and braveness. They’ve also come from courage and creativity, where the supervisor has brought their knowledge and understanding of a person into the room and made a connection, or asked a question that takes the supervisee on a new direction. It’s also when a supervisee has said, “I want to go further, I want to look deeper, not just ‘debrief'”.

August 22, 2011Social work

A different way of thinking about foster care – An Interview with Dr Annabel Goodyer

“I would like to think that fostering will become less regulated, less “professional” and more like normal parenting. We need to select foster carers who can be “Good Enough” stable parents to children and young people who can sometimes be difficult and demanding. We need to trust them to get on with the task and offer support, back-up and additional services when and if they are needed”

August 19, 2011Arts therapies

Art Therapy and Postmodernism – An Interview with Dr. Helene Burt

“This book comes at a time when world events indicate our need to see from the perspective of the other or others… Authors from different communities and cultures come together in this book to help us all stretch our ways of seeing and practicing. Art therapists are in a unique position to use our life-giving creative energies to create positive change in the world.”

August 17, 2011Counselling

Recognizing and Helping the Neglected Child – An Interview with Brigid Daniel, Julie Taylor and Jane Scott

“Social workers tended to focus on responses to referrals and may need help to look beyond that to an overall picture of the child’s development. Other professional groups (such as dentists or nursery nurses or teachers) are well-placed to pick up on signals that a child might be being neglected, but may need more help to recognise this, and to know how to respond. Further, mothers in particular can recognise when they are struggling. Practitioners should not be afraid to ask them how they feel their parenting is going.”

August 12, 2011Social work

Social Work Under Pressure – Fighting Monsters Blogger interviews JKP author Kate van Heugten

“It is possible that social workers may be somewhat more prone to stress and burnout because their relationship with clients is so central to their work. Their work efforts revolve around empathy and understanding of service users’ situations and this can be draining. They may not have been assisted to know how to handle this inherent stress in their training, and they may not be aware that setting boundaries is critical to self-care.”

August 10, 2011May 8, 2017Adoption and Fostering

Using analogies and metaphors to understand and help defeat a child’s eating disorder – An Interview with Ahmed Boachie and Karin Jasper

“The analogies and metaphors in our book help parents understand eating disorders in a way that allows them to ally themselves with treatment rather than with the eating disorder. Children who believe that others grasp their experience find it easier to open up. They feel understood, respected, appreciated, and supported, thus decreasing their guilt and improving their listening.”

August 5, 2011May 8, 2017Education

Looking beyond “bad” behaviour – Melanie Cross on the importance of recognising communication difficulties in young people

“Non-compliance might be due to not understanding what’s been asked and not knowing how to ask for clarification. What might be seen as a refusal to explain might be due to difficulties constructing coherent narratives. Conflict resolution and negotiation require high-level language skills and if these are lacking, then aggression can result. If adults do not recognise the underlying communication problems, the children and young people who experience them can be misunderstood and even misdiagnosed.”

July 28, 2011Arts therapies

“I so want to see people flourish at work through supervision” – An Interview with Robin Shohet

“I believe that something can only be changed when it has been fully embraced first and then it seems to drop away. Trying to change by will does not work and is a kind of violence because it is imposed, even if it is ourselves that is imposing it. So in order to facilitate change, we need to listen and accept first.”

July 15, 2011Arts therapies

VIDEO: The healing power of Poetry and Story Therapy – An Interview with author Geri Chavis

Geri Chavis is a professor of English at St. Catherine University, Minnesota, USA, a Licensed Psycholgist in private practice, and a Certified Poetry Therapist and poetry…

July 14, 2011May 8, 2017Counselling

Creating Change for Complex Children and their Families at the Croft Child and Family Unit

“Through individual and group work we aim to get to know a child really well in order to identify their strengths as well as their weaknesses. We also work closely with parents and have an opportunity to see how family relationships work on a day-to-day basis. We use the information we gain from these close observations to establish a holistic, integrated understanding of all the important factors driving the child’s problems and then use this to plan interventions.”