The Secure Start® Podcast

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A toy fawn, a wordless picture book, a skull on a desk—what can these objects teach us about caring for children who’ve known chaos, loss, and confusion? We welcome back Richard Rawlinson, former director of the Mulberry Bush and long-time consultant in therapeutic childcare, to explore how everyday items become portals to insight, empathy, and better practice.

Richard traces a personal collection—gifts from children, reminders of moments, and metaphors with staying power. Bambi in a crowded cinema reveals the gap that trauma can carve between event and feeling. Rosie's Walk becomes a case study in continuity, ritual, and how the body helps the mind make sense. Damasio’s challenge to Descartes underpins it all: psyche and soma are not separate lanes. We look at what practitioners can observe—posture, presence, tone, pacing—and how these embodied signals change as safety builds.

There’s humour and humility too. A child hears “cremated” as “cream egged,” and we glimpse how kids personalise big, baffling ideas—death included—into images that fit their world. Rather than correct, we learn to guide: offer manageable doses, invite reflection, and let children lead with their meanings. Richard adds a crucial caution from his early years—don’t predict outcomes for children. What we can judge is the reliability of services, the existence of a plan B, and the quality of the holding environment.

A family photo at Yankee Stadium turns into a working model for care: boundaries that are clear but not crushing, a field of play with room to move, warning tracks before walls, and gates that open when it’s time to leave. We connect Winnicott’s work–love–play to daily routines, early signs of progress (ordinary participation, communication beyond meltdown, being in class to learn), and practical dialogue techniques like “let’s pretend you do know” to spark thinking.
Richard’s Bio
Richard has a long association with Residential Therapeutic Communities, having worked at the Mulberry Bush School for well over 20 years and where, from 1991 to 2001, he was its Director. He was also Director, Children and Young People, at the Peper Harow Foundation, from 2001 to 2005. 
Richard qualified as a Social Worker with an MSc from Oxford University in 1983, following the then Part 1 training in Child Psychotherapy at the Tavistock Centre. In 2005 he completed the Ashridge MA and training in Organisational Consulting. He has been Chairman of the Charterhouse Group of Therapeutic Communities and for many years the Chairman of the Care Leavers’ Foundation. In 2014 he became Chair of Trustees at the Mulberry Bush School, only recently stepping down from that position, while remaining a Trustee with a special brief for the links and development of the contacts with and participation of former pupils. He has published numerous articles and continues to lecture widely across the UK and Europe.
Links:
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/TheSecureStartPodcast.                Podcast Blog Site: https://thesecurestartpodcast.com/
Disclaimer:

Disclaimer: Information reported by guests of this podcast is assumed to be accurate as stated. Podcast owner Colby Pearce is not responsible for any error of facts presented by podcast guests. In addition, unless otherwise specified, opinions expressed by guests of this podcast may not reflect those of the podcast owner, Colby Pearce. Finally, all references to case examples are anonymised to the extent that the actual case could not be identified, or are fictional but based on real-life examples for illustrative purposes, or have client consent to talk about in an educative context.
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What if the biggest driver of harmful sexual behaviour in children isn’t deviance in the child, but disconnection in the systems around them? We sit down with Alan Jenkins—veteran practitioner, author of Becoming Ethical, and pioneer of “multi undisciplinary” teams—to rethink how shame, belonging, and power shape what children do and how adults respond.

Across vivid stories from schools and services, Alan shows how our default reactions—suspensions, isolation, forensic labels—often deepen the very conditions that fuel harm. He traces a common pathway that starts with curiosity, is supercharged by isolation and low worth, and is reinforced by a culture that teaches sex as conquest and anaesthetic. Instead of fixating on acts alone, he urges us to assess what truly regulates a child: connection to people, a sense of worth, and supervised, guided places to belong.

Central to this conversation is a sharp distinction between guilt and shame. Guilt is neat and cognitive; shame is affective and, when contained, becomes a compass. Alan calls it the shadow of love—the feeling that slows us down and attunes us to another’s boundary. Through careful, respectful work that first restores stories of loyalty, protest, and care, children can access imminent shame: the embodied “my God, what have I done?” that opens integrity and real repair. From there, practical steps follow—support circles, connection‑centred safety plans, and everyday opportunities to practise discretion.

We also turn the lens on practitioners and supervisors. Urgency to “make them face it” is often picked up as demand and met with rightful protest. Alan outlines a parallel journey: if we expect a young person to consider the other’s experience, we must stay acutely aware of our impact. That stance disarms resistance, honours healthy protest, and creates the safety needed for ethical growth.

If you work in schools, child protection, youth justice, or therapy—or you care about building communities where kids can belong without causing harm—this conversation offers a grounded, humane roadmap. Subscribe, share this episode with a colleague, and leave a review with one change you’ll make in your practice.
Alan’s Bio:
Alan has worked in a range of multi-undisciplinary teams addressing violence and abusive behaviour for more than 35 years. Rather than tire from this work, he has become increasingly intrigued with possibilities for the discovery of ethical, respectful and accountable ways of relating. The valuing of ethics, fairness and the importance of protest against injustice has led him to stray considerably from the path prescribed in his early training as a psychologist, towards a political analysis of abuse. 
Alan’s most recent publication is ‘Becoming Ethical : A Parallel Political Journey With Men Who Have Abused,’ published in 2009.
He was a director of Nada and managed the Mary St. Program for young people who have engaged in sexually harmful behaviour, along with their caregivers and communities.
Links:
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/TheSecureStartPodcast
Podcast Blog Site: https://thesecurestartpodcast.com/

Disclaimer: Information reported by guests of this podcast is assumed to be accurate as stated. Podcast owner Colby Pearce is not responsible for any error of facts presented by podcast guests. In addition, unless otherwise specified, opinions expressed by guests of this podcast may not reflect those of the podcast owner, Colby Pearce. Finally, all references to case examples are anonymised to the extent that the actual case could not be identified, or are fictional but based on real-life examples for illustrative purposes, or have client consent to talk about in
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What if turning 18 didn’t mean turning off support? We sit down with Nimmu, a powerhouse care leaver advocate from Sri Lanka, to map what’s changing, what still hurts, and how to build a system that puts children where they thrive—whether that’s family, kinship, adoption, or residential care. With warmth and precision, Nimmu explains Sri Lanka’s current landscape: most children live in Child Development Centres, foster care is in development, and adoption and kinship care remain key alternatives. She shares how things have improved—care plans, school access, and more respectful language—while spotlighting stubborn gaps like early exits at 15–16, patchy counselling, and the silent crisis of IDs and addresses that lock young adults out of services, votes, and formal work.

We dig into the headline reform: government housing grants of two million rupees for eligible care leavers. It’s a game-changer for stability, but eligibility needs to be fair, and support can’t stop at a house key. Nimmu argues for true readiness: mental health care that starts years before transition, life skills from banking to bus travel, self-defence and safety for girls, and therapeutic caregiving that doesn’t require a therapist—just trained, consistent, loving adults. The most powerful lever, she says, is family strengthening. Divorce, poverty, and crisis push children into institutions; smart aid, mediation, and cash transfers can keep them home.

Nimmu also reveals the engine behind lasting change: peer networks. Through Generation Never Give Up and Rise Together, care leavers connect to jobs, legal help, hostels, and uni pathways. Their next step is a transition home—safe, non-stigmatising housing where young people can work or study, contribute to bills, and stabilise before moving on. It’s practical, dignified, and scalable. Across borders, care leavers are organising, sharing policy wins, and proving that voice plus community equals momentum.

If you care about child protection, aftercare, trauma-informed practice, and social policy that actually works, this conversation will recalibrate your sense of what’s possible. Subscribe, share with a colleague, and leave a review telling us: what’s the one change your community could make this year to improve leaving care?
Nimali’s Bio:
 Affectionately known as Nimmu, Nimali is a care leaver from Sri Lanka who spent over a decade in institutional care. She holds a degree in Journalism, Advertising, and Mass Communication from NIILM University in India, along with additional qualifications in criminal investigation, psychology, and social sciences. 
Nimali has represented Sri Lanka as a speaker at numerous international conferences, including  those focused on child protection and women’s rights in Nepal (2017), and the BICON International Conference in India in 2018 and 2021, in Nepal in 2023, and Malaysia in 2025. Recently, Nimali spoke at the 35th FICE International Conference in Croatia (2024).
 In 2024, Nimali was honoured as a Young Change-Maker by the UN Ambassador and Neon Media. She is an active member of the Global Care Leavers Committee and member of the Care Leaders Council. She represented South Asian care leavers in the UN Resolution Focused Group (2019). 
Nimali recently launched her autobiography ‘The Caged Girl: A Journey To justice’’ &  ‘’Dumburu Pathok ‘’ in Sinhala.
Disclaimer: Information reported by guests of this podcast is assumed to be accurate as stated. Podcast owner Colby Pearce is not responsible for any error of facts presented by podcast guests. In addition, unless otherwise specified, opinions expressed by guests of this podcast may not reflect those of the podcast owner, Colby Pearce. 
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What if the feelings that make this work so hard are the very clues that make it effective? We sit down with Emma Higgs, a child and adolescent psychoanalytic psychotherapist and organisational therapist, to unpack how psychodynamic thinking turns raw emotion into reliable information—and how organisations can harness it to protect staff and truly help distressed children and families.

Emma traces her journey from a turbulent, formative therapeutic community to co-leading APPCIOS, a home for practitioners who work psychodynamically outside traditional consulting rooms. We explore projection, countertransference and containment as essential tools: receiving what a child can’t yet put into words, digesting it, and returning it in tolerable, meaningful form. Along the way, we name the defensive practices that creep into CAMHS, social work, policing and schools—tick-boxes, rigid agendas, behaviour-only lenses—and show how they blunt humanity and block change.

This is trauma-informed practice with depth. We contrast one-day courses and ACE scores with the lived, relational work that builds minds, restores thinking and creates hope. Emma lays out what a containing organisation looks like: clear boundaries and flexible minds, leadership that absorbs anxiety instead of spreading it, and scheduled spaces where teams can reflect, argue safely and lend each other their capacity to think. We talk about group dynamics, supervision, and why professional belonging isn’t a luxury but a clinical intervention in its own right.

If you’re a teacher, social worker, police officer, clinician or leader, you’ll leave with a richer map for surviving the job without losing yourself—and a language for making sense of the “impossible” child or the overwhelmed team. Subscribe, share this with a colleague who needs it, and leave a review telling us the one practice you’ll change tomorrow.
Emma's Bio:
Emma Higgs is a senior Child and Adolescent Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist (ACP), Psychodynamic Organisational Therapist (BPC/APPCIOS), and Psychodynamic Psychotherapist (BPC), living and working in North West England. She has extensive clinical experience across a range of NHS CAMHS services, including inpatient settings and Parent–Infant services.
Alongside her private practice, Emma works closely with organisations that support distressed children and families. She has been involved in developing and delivering a wide range of trainings for non-psychoanalytic professionals, helping them to think psychodynamically about their work. This includes bespoke training for social care professionals and the police, with a focus on children’s development and the impact of trauma. Emma is especially interested in how psychoanalytic thinking can be used more broadly within support services, and in exploring the interplay between the internal world, the external environment, and the wider socio-political context.
Emma is also the Deputy CEO of the Association of Psychodynamic Practice and Counselling in Organisational Settings (APPCIOS), a charitable organisation dedicated to supporting clinicians and practitioners working with distressed individuals through the application of psychodynamic thinking and skills.

Disclaimer: Information reported by guests of this podcast is assumed to be accurate as stated. Podcast owner Colby Pearce is not responsible for any error of facts presented by podcast guests. In addition, unless otherwise specified, opinions expressed by guests of this podcast may not reflect those of the podcast owner, Colby Pearce. Finally, all references to case examples are anonymised to the extent that the actual case could not be identified, or are fictional but based
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What if the most powerful “intervention” in residential care isn’t a therapy model at all, but the quiet predictability of daily life held by thoughtful adults? We sit down with social care consultant Tom Ellison to dig into what actually moves the dial for children who’ve lived through adversity: simple, stable routines, a clear primary task, and relationships that feel parental, enriched, and safe.

Across a candid, story-rich conversation, we challenge the idea that progress begins with jargon or the latest training. Tom shares how reflective spaces keep teams aligned and emotionally grounded, so staff can swap firefighting for understanding. A striking case unpacks why a boy melted down around bath time, and how one missing detail from his history instantly changed the team’s feelings, responses, and outcomes. When we know a child’s story, behaviour starts to make sense; when life becomes predictably “boring,” anxiety fades and connection grows.

We also explore admission as a major intervention in its own right. Claiming a child into the home, assigning a bridging key worker, and shaping the environment to feel warm and homely lay the foundation for belonging. From there, therapy finally has the right “dose” and context to work. Tom frames the residential role as parental but extraordinary, blending consistent authority with trauma-informed nuance. We talk boundaries, phones, and the hard edges of care, including how legal measures can blur authority and inflate costs without improving outcomes.

What do alumni remember? Love, belonging, and the small, joyful rituals that said “you are ours.” If you’re building or leading a children’s home, or you work the front line, this conversation offers practical, human guidance: start with routines and roles, protect reflective time, learn one child deeply, and use authority like a good parent. Subscribe, share with a colleague, and leave a review to help more practitioners find tools that actually help kids heal.
Tom's Bio:

Tom is an accomplished Consultant and leadership trainer with over 30 years in children’s residential care, specialising in innovative leadership and mental health support for young people. Through Elevate Professional Development, launched in 2025, he delivers UK-wide workshops to strengthen care leadership. With 20 years of boardroom experience, Tom has consistently driven strategic leadership and service transformation. Holding a BPS-approved Psychology degree, a Master’s in Psychoanalytic Observational Studies, and postgraduate qualifications in Management and Strategic Management, he blends academic and practical expertise. Currently, he serves as Non-Executive Chair at AMMA Childcare Ltd, Non-Executive Director at Cedars Childcare Ltd and Empathy CIC, and advises the leadership teams of a number of organisations in the third and independent
sectors.

Links:

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/TheSecureStartPodcast
Podcast Blog Site: https://thesecurestartpodcast.com/
Secure Start Site: https://securestart.com.au/
Disclaimer: Information reported by guests of this podcast is assumed to be accurate as stated. Podcast owner Colby Pearce is not responsible for any error of facts presented by podcast guests. In addition, unless otherwise specified, opinions expressed by guests of this podcast may not reflect those of the podcast owner, Colby Pearce.

Support the show