Hello. You have not really heard from me for a while. I have neglected this blog site while working on other endeavours, including the further development of the Triple-A Model of Therapeutic Care in Donegal, Ireland, and the development and implementation of the CARE Therapeutic Framework in the Kinship Care Program in South Australia. Thinking back, I probably have not turned my mind to writing blog posts regularly since I began writing the Second Edition of A Short Introduction to Attachment and Attachment Disorder, in early 2016. This ended up being almost a complete re-write of the first edition.

The past 3 years have been extremely busy, challenging at times, and fulfilling. The Triple-A Model of Therapeutic Care has been rolled-out to foster carers, relative foster carers, and professional staff of TUSLA (Child and Family Agency) who support carers and children in care, as part of an initial three-year implementation project. It has been very successful and positively mentioned by both the carers (in a Training Needs Analysis conducted by TUSLA Staff in Donegal earlier this year) and HIQA – the independent inspection authority for health and social care services in Ireland. It has also been embraced as a model of practice by TUSLA staff, and when I was in Ireland in September this year I had the privilege of training 6 TUSLA staff and 6 local Foster Carers to be parent trainers in the Model.

This year I was engaged to implement the CARE Therapeutic Framework in the Kinship Care Program in South Australia. This has been a multi-layered implementation, with the CARE Therapeutic Framework being rolled out to kinship carers, kinship care support staff, and psychology staff of the Department for Child Protection (DCP) – the local statutory authority within which the Kinship Care Program sits. Like Triple-A, the CARE Therapeutic Framework is both a model of care and a model of practice. As with Triple-A, program evaluation data collected as part of the implementation in South Australia has been extremely positive. Both implementations have supported shared knowledge and language between carers and professionals in each jurisdiction. I am working on being able to share further information about outcomes of both implementation projects more formally in the near future.

During my most recent time in Ireland I also rolled out a shorter training curriculum to carers and professionals in a number of organisations in social care and disability. With a working title of Helping Children and Young People to Realise Their Potential, this was also very favourably received and I look forward to sharing some positive developments in relation to this endeavour very soon!

I appreciate your patience and hope that you will check back in with this blog throughout 2019 as I plan to be more active again in developing and sharing helpful materials for parents and professionals, in the pursuits of better outcomes for children, young people and their families.

Best wishes. Colby