Child and adolescent therapist Vicky Blackwell has taken up a new role with Community Foster Care.

Vicky has worked extensively with fostered and adopted children for more than 10 years. Initially trained as a social worker before further training in Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy and Theraplay, she has wide experience of children with a range of different mental health issues such as RAD, PTSD, ADHD and anxiety disorders as well as emotional difficulties around loss and grief, attachment and problematic relationships.

“I believe it’s important to work with the whole family system when working with children,” she said.

For Community Foster Care, a not-for-profit agency, she will provide a therapeutic family consultation service for looked-after children, working with both children and carers in and around Workington and Lancaster.

“Integrative psychotherapy can make a big difference to children who have experienced early-life trauma, allowing them to have their emotional developmental needs met, which are often delayed or under-developed because of the impact of relational trauma,” she said.

“Cared-for children can have profound attachment difficulties that prevent them from making a good enough relationship with their carers.  Understanding and responding appropriately to the child’s attachment behaviour helps both carers and children to relate to each other differently.”

After qualifying as a social worker in Salford in 2007, Vicky worked primarily with families with adopted children for more than ten years. She retrained in Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy in Manchester in 2014. She is also a certified Theraplay practitioner and supervisor. She now runs her own private practice Family Be, which provides clinical therapeutic interventions to children and families with varied backgrounds and family systems.

Registered Manager with Community Foster Care, Emma Weaver, welcomed Vicky: “We’re really pleased to have someone with Vicky’s approach and skills as part of our team. She’ll help us better understand the trauma and broken attachments which children experience and how that affects them,” she said. 

“She will play a key role in providing expertise at times of crisis, enabling us to build understanding and resilience within the family.”

CFC provides foster carers and family support programmes for children and families all over Lancashire and Cumbria, as well as in Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and Somerset.