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Attachment and Conflict

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Understanding and working with the effects of attachment disorder and conflict

with Andrew Lister and Nigel Singer

Consultancy ¶

Andrew and Nigel have both offered consultations to a wide range of organisations facing difficulties around conflict or attachment problems.

Our approaches include:

Creative thinking to help with specific problems
Consideration of individual cases where appropriate
Working with issues in residential homes or education facilities
Working with groups of staff

Support ¶

Helping to build adoptive or care relationships, individual coaching or mentoring and helping to resolve conflicts. We have done this for

Individuals
Using groups
Staff teams

Training ¶

We offer a range of training where everyone wins. These courses are designed to improve the experience of children in care, foster carers, adopters, residential workers and social workers. We offer five modules that provide a sequential learning opportunity.

The benefits are:

Young people in your care

Will be well listened to
Are supported in their development
Increase their self-esteem

Your foster carers and adopters

Have a new set of interpersonal tools
They deal more easily with difficult moments
Experience less stress and foster placements last

Your social workers

Increase their skills and understanding of working with young people and their carers
Develop their ability to manage difficult situations
Build their awareness of attachment issues

As an organisation you will experience

Less placement breakdown
Happier social workers, carers and young people

Programme Content ¶

The Training Modules are:

An introduction to attachment, listening and conflict
Dealing with conflict
Taking responsibility – breaking the ‘victim’ pattern
The effects of trauma and history
Values and beliefs – what I stand for

Each module will offer elements of:

Theory about attachment and an opportunity to look at what this means in practice to you on a day to day basis
Skills and strategies needed to work with young people who have attachment difficulties
Opportunities to develop listening skills including

> Empathic listening
> How to listen whilst having strong reactions

Practical options for managing conflict situations
Tme to reflect on what works and what doesn’t work with young people

The modules will contain a mixture of theory alongside plenty of time to learn and practice new skills. There will also be time to talk about your specific issues and to draw on the experience of both the group and the trainers to help find new ways of working.

The trainers will model the skills they are hoping others to develop; learning process will be adjusted to suit the needs of any particular group and as they believe that learning happens best when people are enjoying themselves, they will hopefully work with a light touch.

They will model good practice in regard to equality; this will include sensitivity to any specific needs within the group and it will also involve them respectfully challenging discriminatory behaviour.

They will offer guidelines that will help everyone to have equal opportunity to participate. The guidelines will also provide a framework in which a sense of safety can be built up in the group.

About Andrew and Nigel ¶

Andrew trained as a clinical psychologist in 1988 and has since then, worked in the NHS with children and their families. He developed Thinking Allowed over 10 years ago, which specialises in the emotional health of young people looked after by Bristol Social Services.
He has supported hundreds of children and carers and much of his work over the last 7 years has been developed out of his training in Attachment Therapy with Dan Hughes.

Nigel trained as a mediator in 1991 and was first involved in training other mediators in 1993. He now works in many types of organisations as a trainer, mediator, facilitator and coach. He is strongly influenced by Creative Listening which he first studied with Rachel Pinney in 1982. He has been an informal student of Process Oriented Psychology for 10 years and builds these skills and principles into his work. He is also a foster carer.

Together they have a depth of expertise in working with young people, understanding attachment issues, managing conflict and training skills.

Please contact us for more information and to discuss your needs

Contact Andrew and Nigel