Therapeutic Residential Care for Children and Young People: An Attachment and Trauma Informed Model for Practice

Citation

Diamond, J. (2013), "Therapeutic Residential Care for Children and Young People: An Attachment and Trauma Informed Model for Practice", Therapeutic Communities: The International Journal of Therapeutic Communities, Vol. 34 No. 1, pp. 54-55. https://doi.org/10.1108/09641861311330518

This book is written by the Directors of the Australian Lighthouse Foundation, and independent consultant Patrick Tomlinson. It set out to make the reader aware of the impact of complex trauma, and offers a model of theory and practice that can inform residential practice in order to meet the needs of the growing numbers of traumatised children and young people who find themselves within state care systems.

The authors argue that a “trauma informed” model must influence every aspect of the work, ranging from direct with individual children and working with them in groups, to the ethos and fabric of the residential home environment, and further out to the relationship the organization has with its wider community. In this way the book offers a way of thinking about, and developing, a holistic and integrated approach to residential care and treatment.

The fact that this book was published this year is a sobering reminder in austere times of the urgency of the imperative, that “prevention now will protect future generations”.

The book offers the reader a logical sequence of chapters, which take the reader through the key themes: the importance of a creating and working from a theoretical base, delivering trauma informed practice, the role therapeutic relationships, staff support, the home and the holding environment, group process, the organization and the community, transitions and after care and outcomes based practice. The writing is clear and the theory base is interwoven from across a range of concepts and illuminated by relevant quotations by a range of practitioners from across the psychoanalytic, attachment and neuroscientific traditions.

Practitioners and students in the field will find that the regular case examples illustrating the links between theory and practice work well, and the use of bullet point as brief guides to deliver practice guidelines are helpful as they break down complex ideas into manageable and useable doses.

If I have any criticism of the book it is that some sections might have been more condensed, as some themes repeated themselves. However, overall I found that the book did an excellent job in bringing together and articulating a range of core issues and important themes for any individual, group or organization who wishes to deliver effective therapeutic child care, as we do at the Mulberry Bush School. I think the book provides an effective transition between the growing genre on “working with trauma”, and the specifics of how this work might be applied to models of residential care.