It’s about time we shine a big old spot light on all the brilliant pieces of work that happen every single day for children and families. The success of this intervention relies on her ability to feel seen, heard and understood by me and that gives me the best chance of helping her to do this for her daughter. Keep my practice up to date and record how I use research, theories and frameworks to inform my practice and my professional judgement. A foster carer who doesn’t mentalize for the child can not offer them the sensitive and attuned response they need, especially when they may be demonstrating challenging or distressing behaviour.

It may be appropriate but potentially painful to first ask, ‘Do you feel that your child loves you?’, before then exploring ways they feel that the child shows this. Cook, A. (2014) Exploring mechanisms of maltreatment in a family, in D. Shemmings and Y. Shemmings, (eds) Assessing Disorganized Attachment Behaviour in Children: An Evidenced Based Model for understanding and Supporting Families. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, pp. 67-76.Shortly after the opening, Alice suffered a stroke. By spring, she was dead. Gertrude survived her by a decade, living to ninety. The couple had expressly wished to be buried together — a wish Gertrude’s family bluntly refused in one final act of assault on their lifelong devotion. Alice and Gertrude, early 1900s. ( Alice Austen House archive.) Shemmings, D., Shemmings, Y., Wilkins, D., Febrer, Y., Cook, A., Feeley, F., & Denham.C. (2013) Tools social workers can use to talk to children. Available: https://www.communitycare.co.uk/tools-social-workers-can-use-to-talk-to-children/ If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to get in touch! You can just drop me a message. Looking forward to hear from you and your cats! :)

She is survived by a daughter, Sandra Loving of Galion; a son, Richard (Jessica) Loving of Marion; grandchildren, Garland (Nichole) Loving II, Renee (David Focht) Wilde, Clayton Rivers IV and Gerald Loving; great grandchildren, Alaya, Gabriel, Ava, Zach, Dave and Skye; a brother, Raymond (Dawn) Boyd of Steilacoom, WA; a sister, Frances Boyd-Martin of Mesa, AZ and 10 nieces and nephews. My PhD research focused on exploring the influencing factors on the outcome of parent-child intervention and followed parents placed in either a residential or foster-care placement with their babies for 12 weeks. I identified distinct thematic differences between those who had a positive outcome and returned to the community with their babies and those that did not, and these themes became factors termed ‘change facilitators’ or ‘change inhibitors’. My study concluded that a focus on identifying ‘change facilitators’ and ‘change inhibitors’, at the family assessment stage could help to inform the types of interventions required. This approach may therefore provide families with an increased likelihood of making the desired improvements and remaining together. Loving, A. (2018) Attachment, Trauma and Parenting in Social Work Practice, Ph.D., Royal Holloway, University of London.

December 17, 1943 — August 23, 2021

Any misattunement is likely to lead to further ruptures in the relationship, which will continue to impact negatively on the child’s internal working model of themselves. This is a peek into the (sometimes somewhat toxic) world of professional and serious ballet. It is also a mini-biography hodgepodge of ballerinas, some famous and some not. I enjoyed the peeks inside the world of ballet, and it’s a world that, as you might expect, is pretty extreme in its expectations. “The traits ballet takes to an extreme — the beauty, the thinness, the stoicism and silence and submission — are valued in girls and women everywhere.” Alice has worked within the field of child protection for 11 years and currently works independently providing parental assessments and intervention work for local authorities. She completed her PhD within the social care department at Royal Holloway University, which focused on exploring influencing factors on the outcomes of intervention, with a particular interest in the impact of childhood trauma on parenting capacity. Alice delivers attachment and relationship-based practice training to social care practitioners within the UK and Ireland. Alice is an honorary lecturer for the Centre for Child Protection at Kent University and has published work in the Child and Family Social Work and Children England journals. Her most recent publication is a chapter titled ‘Working with cases of neglect and emotional abuse’, featured in ‘Child Protection and the Care Continuum’. She has previously worked with Community Care, providing social workers with effective direct work techniques and producing guidance on understanding attachment relationships and writing about this in court. As you might guess from that last quote, the book does dive into the woke, feminist mindset so prevalent among those Robb’s age (she’s in her early 30s). We hear a lot about #metoo and how NYCB founder Balanchine and NYCB choreographer Peter Martins were abusive to dancers. Balanchine claimed to choose dancers “as you would choose horses.” The book’s title comes from a Balanchine quote to a dancer: “Don’t think, dear. Just do.” As the years go on, Robb feels “guilty about harboring affection for a system that clearly harmed women.” She is thrilled to attend a ballet and see a “gender nonconforming” dancer “(who uses they/them pronouns)” in a female role. She is ecstatic when, during covid, she sees dancers performing in masks.

Born December 17, 1943 in Blenheim, New Jersey, she was the daughter of the late Raymond and Alice (Fiedler) Boyd. In 1950, while working on his book The Revolt of American Women, Oliver Jensen — a thirty-six-year-old former Life magazine editor and writer — discovered 3,500 of Alice’s glass-plate negatives in the basement of the Staten Island Historical Society and was instantly taken with their uncommon genius. Leafing through phone books, he was staggered to realize that Alice was still alive, then doubly staggered to learn that she was living at a poorhouse. Mum felt during our first session that when thinking about the ‘secure base’ element of their relationship the sense of ‘shared joy’ was very much missing.Recently diagnosed with autism and dyslexia, Shannon has only ever given the hand-turned bowls she makes on her incredible foot-powered pole lathe as gifts. Dom and mentor Alice love her work and the way she produces it, and want to convince Shannon that she and the bowls she creates are much more marketable than she thinks. Alice sets Shannon a challenge to make her bowls recognisably hers, but does she believe that what she does has real value? A delightfully honest and entertaining peek behind the literal and figurative curtain, and a must read if you love ballet. I have worked within the field of child protection for 11 years, across local authority and residential settings. For the past seven years, I have worked independently for local authorities, completing parenting assessments and offering mentalization based parenting intervention. As well as informing assessments, asking questions like these, which prompt a parent to consider their child’s internal states, can help develop their capacity to mentalize with their child. You can also help parents to develop mentalization by modelling it yourself towards them. It got me thinking that, where possible, the families we work with benefit from us sharing a little bit of ourselves with them. Softening in some way, especially when there could be a similarity that opens up the opportunity for connection.