Shows
The Secure Start® Podcast#36: What If Behaviour Is Just Armour For Hurt? Vicki McKeownSend us a textWhat if the behaviour that drives you up the wall is actually armour against shame? We sit down with psychotherapist and author Vicky McKeown to unpack how shame and attachment shape everyday life for children, parents, and the professionals who support them. From adoption and fostering to classrooms and case reports, we trace the subtle ways shame shows up and how a shift in language and stance can transform outcomes.Vicky shares her journey from criminology to trauma therapy and makes a strong case for working with the whole caregiving unit...
2026-01-251h 00
The Secure Start® Podcast#34: Making the conscious unconscious, with Peter BlakeSend us a textI am very excited to release my conversation with Peter Blake on The Secure Start Podcast.We explore how children communicate through behaviour and play, why containment matters, and how to balance understanding with practical management. We share tools to notice meaning, time conversations well, and use a child’s passions to build safety, trust, and growth.• why being relaxed and steady allows containment • inner and outer worlds shaping behaviour • OTT method: observe, think, talk in good time • early anxieties, attachment, and security needs • unrepressed unconscious and...
2026-01-181h 27
The Secure Start® Podcast#35: What If Children's Safeguarding Began With Love? Carla KeyteSend us a textWhat if the most powerful safeguarding tool isn’t another form, but a steady adult who shows up with love? That’s the heart of my conversation with Carla Keyte, founder of Lighthouse and a leading voice in UK residential care, as we unpack how safe, stable, loving homes are built—and measured—through relationships, not fear. We explore how love-led practice, not fear-based compliance, creates safe, stable, loving homes in residential care.We trace the sector’s language shift from behaviour management to relational healing, and ask the tough question: how do we...
2026-01-1157 min
The Secure Start® PodcastOrdinary Life, Extraordinary Care - A Recap of 2025 on The Secure Start PodcastSend us a textThis is a recap of the first 33 episodes of The Secure Start Podcast, all released in 2025. It has been an incredible honour to host them and I am looking forward to 2026!If you take something inspirational from the video, please consider liking and subscribing to this channel and related platforms.Links:Podcast Blog Site: https://thesecurestartpodcast.com/Podcast site: https://thesecurestartpodcast.buzzsprout.comSecure Start Site: https://securestart.com.au/Please also consider becoming as member on my Patreon page. Membership is free, b...
2025-12-3113 min
The Secure Start® Podcast#33 Care Leavers To Care Leaders - with Surja (Udayan Care Alumni)Send us a textWhat happens when belief meets opportunity and doesn’t let go? We sit down with Surja—care‑experienced leader, LIFT alum, and global advocate—to trace a path from a village in Uttar Pradesh to a seat at international tables, and to unpack what real aftercare looks like when lived experience leads. With Dr Kiran Modi offering context on Udayan Care’s model, we explore how mentoring, peer networks, and co‑creation turn care leavers into care leaders.Across the conversation, we map the mechanics of the LIFT Fellowship: a one‑year journey t...
2025-12-241h 04
The Secure Start® Podcast#32 It Takes A Network, Not A Superhero - with Robbie GilliganSend us a textWhat if lasting change for young people in care comes not from a single attachment, but from a web of “many good adults” who open doors to the wider world? We sit down with Emeritus Professor Robbie Gilligan to trace how schools, mentors, hobbies, and work links create belonging that survives the transition out of care. Drawing on four decades of research and vivid stories—from a nun buying Sinead O’Connor’s first guitar to a baker mentoring a teen before dawn—we map an outward-facing practice that turns values into opportunities.Acr...
2025-12-141h 06
The Secure Start® Podcast#31 Truth First: Caring Beyond The System, with Louise AllenSend us a textSome conversations burn slowly and then glow for days. Sitting down with Louise Allen, we trace a line from a childhood rewritten by others to a life spent restoring names, dignity, and futures. Louise grew up in care, became a long‑term foster carer, and now writes bestsellers that refuse to look away. She talks candidly about forced adoption, the quiet children who go unseen, and the neighbour who saved her by offering what the system couldn’t: warmth without conditions and a place to just be a kid.We get prac...
2025-12-031h 14
The Secure Start® Podcast#30 - John Turberville: How The Mulberry Bush Helps Children Relearn Trust Through RelationshipsSend us a textIn this in-depth conversation with John Turberville, CEO of The Mulberry Bush, we explore how therapeutic residential care transforms the lives of children who have experienced trauma, relational ruptures, & multiple placement breakdowns. John reflects on the organisation’s 75-year legacy, the central role of relationships, family work, trust, innovation, & reflective practice, & why high-quality residential care must be seen as a placement of choice—not a last resort—in child protection & out-of-home care.John traces his path from a surveyor in London to therapeutic childcare in The Co...
2025-12-011h 21
The Secure Start® Podcast#29 From Trauma To Hope, with Dr Hayley LugassySend us a textWhat does it really take to heal after trauma—and how do we help children do the same without causing more harm? I sit down with Dr Haley Lugassy, a senior educational psychologist whose lived journey from teenage trauma and isolation in Spain to rebuilding life and career in England reframes what recovery looks like. Her story is anchored by the power of one good adult, the steady fuel of hope, and the life‑changing mix of compassion and boundaries.Haley speaks openly about enduring sensitivities like abandonment anxiety, the long work...
2025-11-091h 05
The Secure Start® Podcast#28 What If Child Protection Started Before Harm Happened, with Professor Julie TaylorSend us a textImagine a world where we don’t just pull kids out of the river but walk upstream to stop them falling in. That’s the shift we make with Professor Julie Taylor, a leading nurse scientist whose work bridges health, social care, and the lived realities of families under pressure. Together we unpack child maltreatment as a public health challenge, not only a forensic problem, and explore what actually moves the needle on safety and wellbeing.We dig into the socioecological model to map the layers that shape risk and protection: pers...
2025-11-0157 min
The Secure Start® Podcast#27 Why Clear Primary Tasks And Brave Authority Transform Children’s Homes, with Tom EllisonSend us a textThe work gets easier when the purpose gets clearer. I sit down with social care consultant and leadership trainer Tom Ellison to unpack how a simple, jargon-free primary task can reshape children’s residential care. Tom traces his path from frontline practice to boardrooms and back into coaching, explaining why so many teams know what “good” looks like yet struggle to do it consistently. His answer is both bold and practical: define the primary task, align everyone to it, and use supervision to keep that alignment steady.Tom breaks alignment into a livi...
2025-10-251h 18
The Secure Start® Podcast#26 How a Reflective, Respectful Approach Helped Families Choose Healthier Relationships, with Adriana DiasSend us a textSome projects change direction without losing their purpose—and that’s where real growth happens. I sit down with Portuguese clinical psychologist Adriana Dias to explore Ravira Volta, a pilot that helped girls in residential care and their birth families build healthier relationships by widening choice, deepening respect, and keeping reflection at the centre of the work. Rather than forcing a linear “turnaround,” Adriana’s team embraced non‑linear change: testing new strategies, adjusting the plan with supervision, and redefining success as the best possible connection for each family.We trace how an exter...
2025-10-111h 05
The Secure Start® Podcast#25 How supporting adults creates the safety children need to learn, belong, and heal, with Megan CorcoranSend us a textWhat if the most powerful lever for child healing sits with the adults who show up every day? I sat down with trauma-informed educator and Wagtail Institute founder Megan Corcoran to unpack how belonging transforms classrooms—and why staff wellbeing isn’t a “nice to have,” it’s the backbone of consistent care. Drawing on years in alternative education and leadership, Megan lays out a clear path: support adults, stabilise culture, and simple, universal practices will start doing heavy lifting for learning and behaviour.We explore the everyday moves that make a school f...
2025-10-051h 03
The Secure Start® Podcast#24 Holding the Helpers, with Richard CrossSend us a textWhat if the most transformative thing we can do for children is to care for the carers first? That’s the provocative starting point for a wide-ranging conversation with psychotherapist and clinical leader Richard Cross, whose work brings attachment theory out of the textbook and into daily practice across residential homes, foster services, schools and clinical teams.We explore how containment, supervision, and shared language turn trauma-informed care from a training buzzword into a living culture. Richard breaks down the ATIC approach—Attachment and Trauma Informed Care—built on two parallel pathwa...
2025-09-301h 15
The Secure Start® Podcast#23 Thirty-Five Placements and Counting: Why Some Kids Need a Different Option, with Bruce HendersonSend us a textWhat if we've been looking at residential care all wrong? Professor Bruce Henderson, author of "Challenging the Conventional Wisdom About Residential Care for Children and Youth," presents a compelling case for rethinking our approach to caring for vulnerable children.Drawing on over 35 years of experience with Black Mountain Home for Children and his extensive research analysis, Professor Henderson challenges the notion that residential care should be a "last resort" option. He shares the heartbreaking reality of children who bounce between dozens of placements—one young person experienced 35 different homes by age 15—crea...
2025-09-081h 06
The Secure Start® Podcast#22 Reimagining Children's Homes: From Last Resort to Purposeful Healing, with Kevin GallagherSend us a textWhat does it really mean to provide therapeutic residential care to traumatised young people? Dr Kevin Gallagher draws from three decades of experience to challenge our assumptions about children's homes and how we use them.Kevin's journey from banking to social work, driven by his own experiences of exclusion and inequality, mirrors the evolution of UK residential care itself. His candid reflections reveal how sophisticated practice develops through mentorship, theoretical understanding, and lived experience.At the heart of this conversation lies a provocative question: why do we wait until...
2025-09-061h 07
The Secure Start® Podcast#20 Challenging Last Resort Thinking: Why Some Children Thrive in Residential Care, with Dr Laura SteckleySend us a textWhat if everything we think we know about residential childcare is wrong? What if, for some children, it's not the dreaded last resort but actually the best option for healing and growth?Dr. Laura Steckley, who leads the MSc in Advanced Residential Child Care at the University of Strathclyde, brings three decades of practice, research, and teaching experience to challenge our assumptions. Having worked in both the United States and Scotland, she offers a refreshing perspective on what quality residential care can achieve when properly understood and supported.The...
2025-09-021h 15
The Secure Start® Podcast#21 The Science of Prevention: How We Can End Child Maltreatment, with Benjamin PerksSend us a textWhat if child maltreatment wasn't an inevitable social problem, but something we could dramatically reduce within a generation? Benjamin Perks, Head of Campaigns and Advocacy at UNICEF, believes this is not only possible but within our grasp.In this compelling conversation, Ben shares his remarkable journey from the residential care system in the UK—where he experienced gang involvement and street life—to becoming a global leader in child protection at the United Nations. The turning point? A teacher who took him under her wing when he was 15, becoming "the first adul...
2025-08-2859 min
The Secure Start® Podcast#19 From Winnicott's Piano to Adolescent Minds: Peter Wilson's JourneySend us a textA series of serendipities and the opportunity to play Winnicott's piano marked Peter Wilson's remarkable journey into child psychotherapy. In this captivating conversation, Peter reveals how a degree in industrial economics led unexpectedly to founding Young Minds, one of the UK's most influential children's mental health charities.Peter's four years training at the Anna Freud Centre in London during the late 1960s represented a turning point in his life. Working directly with Anna Freud herself, he absorbed the psychoanalytic approach that would define his career spanning more than five decades. His...
2025-08-181h 15
The Secure Start® Podcast#18 Relentless Kindness: The Foundation of Therapeutic Care, with Adela HolmesSend us a textWhat if everything we thought we knew about helping traumatised children was backwards? In this profound conversation, Adela Holmes reveals the revolutionary approach that transformed lives at Hurstbridge Farm Therapeutic Residential Care Pilot in Victoria.At the heart of effective therapeutic care lies what Holmes calls "relentless kindness" – an unwavering commitment to relationship-based approaches that prioritise connection over control. Drawing from neurobiology and decades of practice wisdom, she explains why traditional behavioural management techniques often fail our most vulnerable children."Before they can make any lasting change in their be...
2025-08-101h 18
The Secure Start® Podcast#17 The Hidden Strengths of Residential Care: Challenging the Status Quo with Dr Jenna BollingerSend us a textDr. Jenna Bollinger takes us on a revealing journey into the heart of what makes residential care truly effective for vulnerable children and young people. Drawing from her doctoral research on stability in out-of-home care, she challenges conventional wisdom and offers a fresh perspective on how we measure success in these settings.The podcast opens with a powerful revelation: stability isn't simply about remaining in one placement for a long time. As Dr Bollinger explains, "If I was just told I have to leave my house today for no reason and...
2025-08-051h 00
The Secure Start® Podcast#16 Building Hope: Lighthouse Foundation's Legacy of LoveSend us a textWhat happens when one person loves a child unconditionally? According to Susan Barton AM, founder of Lighthouse Foundation, "they'll usually make it through." This profound belief forms the backbone of an extraordinary organisation that has transformed the landscape of youth homelessness in Australia over the past 33 years.Susan's journey began with a shocking encounter in Sri Lanka, where she witnessed a severely malnourished baby covered in abscesses and flies. That moment changed everything. Returning to Australia, she discovered that while our children weren't dying of malnutrition, they faced a different crisis—on...
2025-07-241h 16
The Secure Start® Podcast#15 Unlocking Potential Through Love and Acceptance, with Patricia SheridanSend us a textPatricia Sheridan's remarkable journey from critical observer to pioneering founder reveals how one person's vision can transform an entire field. When she established Moore House School in 1988, Mrs Sheridan was swimming against the tide of conventional childcare practices in Scotland, where controlling children took precedence over nurturing their potential.What began as a small residential school has blossomed into the Moore House Group – encompassing residential education, foster care services, and specialized support for neurodiverse children. Throughout this evolution, Mrs Sheridan maintained an unwavering commitment to a revolutionary principle: every child deserves to...
2025-07-211h 08
The Secure Start® Podcast#14 Learning to Live with Yourself and Others: Insights from Therapeutic Residential Care, with Richard RollinsonSend us a textRichard Rowlandson draws from over five decades of experience at the Mulberry Bush School to share profound insights about therapeutic residential care for traumatised children. His journey from New York City to the English countryside led to a lifelong commitment to creating environments where troubled children can learn to live with themselves and others.At the heart of Richard's approach is the concept of belonging. He eloquently unpacks how children who don't feel "held in mind" by adults will produce behaviours to be "on their mind" instead – even when those behaviours ha...
2025-07-131h 14
The Secure Start® Podcast#13 Breaking the Cycle: How Investing in Children's Services Changes Lives, with Andrew IsaacSend us a textAndrew Isaac brings decades of leadership experience in children's social care to this eye-opening discussion about the state of foster care in the UK. As Chair of BSN Social Care and the Children's Services Development Group, Andrew offers rare insights into both the frontline challenges and policy considerations shaping outcomes for vulnerable young people.The conversation tackles the alarming 30% increase in children entering care across England since 2010, examining how this surge has stretched resources and created unprecedented challenges. Andrew expertly dissects the intersection of funding constraints, outdated legislation, and shifting societal...
2025-07-031h 04