How to say “Thank You”. By Keith White

A few days ago I was facilitating a day course on the book, The Growth of Love (Abingdon: BRF 2008) with a team from a Pre-School.  In the process we began to focus on one of the most common practical challenges of daily interaction in this environment.  In my experience it is a conundrum not … Read more

Seeing the Bigger Picture. By Keith White

It’s always revealing when roles are suddenly reversed.  For example, when a doctor becomes a patient; when a judge is in the dock; when the strong becomes weak; when the giver needs help, or when the proverbial poacher turns gamekeeper.  In writing this piece I am reflecting in situ on just such a reversal.  As … Read more

A foreign correspondent (Part 2). By Angus Burnett

This is the second part of an adaptation an M.A. dissertation by Angus Burnett. It is about leadership, task and organisation in a therapeutic community for children. The M.A. in Therapeutic Child Care at The University of Reading was run by Adrian Ward, Dr. Linnet Mc Mahon, Paul Cain, Deborah Best and Theresa Howard at … Read more

The Yellow Socks Theory and Evidence-based Practice for Children in Public Care. By Colin Maginn

On the 15th March 2019, at a ‘Best Practice Forum’ in the House of Lords, I presented our work, ‘The Emotional Warmth Model of Professional Childcare’ drawing on two evidenced-based research papers by my colleagues Dr Seán Cameron (2017) and Cameron and Dr Ravi Das (2019). This article takes the main points of the presentations … Read more

Play as medicine. By Sean Williams

The author Sean Williams is Headteacher at The Forge; a Pupil Referral Unit in Redditch.  We open his article with a few paragraphs written by him about the work of the Forge: At the Forge we work with adolescents who have been permanently excluded or who are at risk of permanent exclusion from their mainstream … Read more

International Centre News April 2019

The TCJ continues to share members ‘lived experiences’ of the achievements, dilemmas and struggles to meet the needs of emotionally troubled and traumatised children, families and communities. Many of the papers in this edition explore perspectives on the concept of community. Thadei Kamisa writes from Pangani Town, Tanzania, on how the rape and murder of … Read more

Review of ‘Shaping Children’s Services’ by Chris Hanvey (Oxford: Routledge, 2019)

This is such a thoughtful, insightful, balanced, well-informed and seminal book that this review will be in the form of a conversational response.  My review copy is so heavily annotated that it is obvious that Chris Hanvey has challenged and stimulated my thinking and imagination considerably. In 128 pages, which include an appendix and index, … Read more

Love Actually. By Keith White

Since writing the piece on A General Theory of Love (New York: Random House, 2001) by the three psychiatrists, T. Lewis, F. Amini, R. Lannon, and then re-reading the book, my mind has been teeming with a mass of thoughts, questions, and ideas. And gradually these have been getting sorted out into what a chess … Read more

The Dynamics of Community. By Keith White

In this column I would like to share with you in some detail what happened at Mill Grove during a recent evening.  Before doing that, let me pass on some insights of Jean Vanier, the founder of the L’Arche communities that I happened to discover after the evening in question.  These helped me to understand … Read more

From the Planned Environment Therapy Archive at MB3

The First of a Regular Feature From The Planned Environment Therapy Archive at MB3 We hope you enjoy our first contribution to the Journal. The Library and archive from which this article is taken is situated in the Mulberry Bush Third Space (MB3). MB3 is located in the village of Toddington, Gloucestershire, (formerly the Barns Archive … Read more