The Secure Start® Podcast

Send us a textThis is a recap of the first 33 episodes of The Secure Start Podcast, all released in 2025.  It has been an incredible honour to host them and I am looking forward to 2026!If you take something inspirational from the video, please consider liking and subscribing to this channel and related platforms.Links:Podcast Blog Site: https://thesecurestartpodcast.com/Podcast site: https://thesecurestartpodcast.buzzsprout.comSecure Start Site: https://securestart.com.au/Please also consider becoming as member on my Patreon page. Membership is free, but you can also take up a paid membership if you would like to support the ongoing development of the podcast. Visit: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/TheSecureStartPodcastDisclaimer: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

Send us a textWhat happens when belief meets opportunity and doesn’t let go? We sit down with Surja—care‑experienced leader, LIFT alum, and global advocate—to trace a path from a village in Uttar Pradesh to a seat at international tables, and to unpack what real aftercare looks like when lived experience leads. With Dr Kiran Modi offering context on Udayan Care’s model, we explore how mentoring, peer networks, and co‑creation turn care leavers into care leaders.Across the conversation, we map the mechanics of the LIFT Fellowship: a one‑year journey that blends mentoring, life skills, and project design to strengthen aftercare systems. We talk about failing early and thriving later, about teachers who stayed late and house mentors who stay for life, and about the shift from telling hard stories to proposing practical solutions. When alumni return as coordinators and network builders, advocacy stops being an event and becomes an ecosystem. That’s where policy changes—when people closest to the gaps design the bridge.We also step into the Global Care Leavers Community. From Africa’s aftercare gaps to language barriers in Latin America, cross‑regional learning sparks better ideas and fairer access to platforms. The network acts as a hub for research, conferences, and leadership development, making sure participation includes pay, preparation, and ongoing support. The biggest lesson? Short‑term fixes rarely change a life. Long‑term mentoring, multi‑year pathways, and true partnership between experience and expertise are what anchor success.If you care about child protection, aftercare, youth leadership, or how to build systems that don’t let people fall through the cracks, this story will stay with you. Surja's Bio:Surja is a care leaver from Uttar Pradeshm who spent nine years in a Udayan Care Childrens home. In 2022, she joined the LIFT (Learning in Fellowship Together) Fellowship, where she raised awareness about care leavers through impactful blog writing, and mobilized care leavers in Uttar Pradesh to form Care Leavers Unite, a growing state network.Since BICON 2023, Surja has been part of the BICON Reference Group, contributing her ideas and experiences to strengthen global care leaver advocacy. In 2025, she became a member of the BICON Coordination Group, taking an active role in the BICON Committee to help shape future gatherings with her insights and leadership.Surja is a core member of the National Care Leavers Network since 2023 and an active part of the Global Care Leavers Community, where she has been advocating for care leavers on national and international platforms for over three years.In 2023, Surja also became the Coordinator for LIFT – the National Care Leavers Fellowship at Udayan Care, where she guides care leaders to design and implement innovative, personalized projects that strengthen care and aftercare systems while bridging gaps in support for young people transitioning out of care. Her work reflects a deep commitment to building strong connections, amplifying care leavers’ voices, and shaping better policies for aftercare across India and beyond.Links:Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/TheSecureStartPodcastPodcast Blog Site: https://thesecurestartpodcast.com/Podcast site: https://thesecurestartpodcast.buzzsprout.comSecure 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 owSupport the show

Send us a textWhat if lasting change for young people in care comes not from a single attachment, but from a web of “many good adults” who open doors to the wider world? We sit down with Emeritus Professor Robbie Gilligan to trace how schools, mentors, hobbies, and work links create belonging that survives the transition out of care. Drawing on four decades of research and vivid stories—from a nun buying Sinead O’Connor’s first guitar to a baker mentoring a teen before dawn—we map an outward-facing practice that turns values into opportunities.Across the conversation, we challenge the narrow gaze that reduces a child’s world to placements and case files. School rises as a daily engine of recognition and routine; groups and residential communities offer regulation and growth; and community networks carry young people beyond age eighteen, when statutory support often fades. Robbie makes the case for social capital alongside attachment theory, showing how curated networks of teachers, coaches, employers, extended family, and former carers reduce reliance on luck and buffer life’s inevitable ruptures.We also unpack what meaningful participation really looks like: keeping young people in the loop, protecting their face among peers, and showing visible influence from what they say. Certainty lowers anxiety; small, consistent actions build trust. The takeaway is practical and hopeful—scaffold repair, protect talents and interests through moves, and design services that help each child enter the world with more connections than they had yesterday. If you care about child protection, residential care, foster care, or the journey of care leavers, this is a grounded, humane roadmap for change.Robbie’s Bio:Robbie holds a Professor Emeritus appointment at the School of Social Work and Social Policy, Trinity College Dublin. He previously served as Professor of Social Work and Social Policy at Trinity from 2001- 2022, and in total was a full time academic there for 40 years. He has worked in the area of children in care, care leavers and marginalised young people in many roles over his career including as: youth worker, social worker, policy advocate, foster carer, board member of residential and community services, adviser, social work educator and researcher. He has published widely in relation to the experiences of children and young people in out of home care and care experienced adults (with a strong focus on their work and education journeys). He has recently published with Vietnamese colleagues a study of care leaver experiences in Vietnam. He is currently Co-Principal Investigator of Ten Years On - a national study of care leavers in their late twenties/early thirties in Ireland.  He has also served as an adviser (2021-22) to the Organisation for Economic Coooperation and Development report on care-leavers - the first such intervention by OECD on this topic: Improving care leavers’ socioeconomic outcomes | The OECD Forum Network (oecd-forum.org). See https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4150-3523 for a full list of his publications and outputsLinks:Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/TheSecureStartPodcastPodcast Blog Site: https://thesecurestartpodcast.com/Secure Start Site: https://securestart.com.au/DisclaimerInformation 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, opinionsSupport the show

Send us a textSome conversations burn slowly and then glow for days. Sitting down with Louise Allen, we trace a line from a childhood rewritten by others to a life spent restoring names, dignity, and futures. Louise grew up in care, became a long‑term foster carer, and now writes bestsellers that refuse to look away. She talks candidly about forced adoption, the quiet children who go unseen, and the neighbour who saved her by offering what the system couldn’t: warmth without conditions and a place to just be a kid.We get practical, not theoretical. Louise shows how to keep a child’s dignity intact in a world of notes and meetings: put their photo on the table, say the answer instead of asking the painful question again, and write logs to the child because they will read them. We explore why dogs often do what adults can’t, acting as co‑regulators and night watch when self‑harm risks rise. And we challenge the culture of “minimum standards,” arguing for training, support, and respect that match the complexity of foster care. Warm welcomes, eye contact, a kitchen that smells like biscuits—these are not small things. They are the work.Louise also opens the door to Spark Sisterhood, the charity she founded after visiting girls who’d fallen off the cliff edge of care. We unpack how inconsistent allowances, isolation, and learned dependencies collide at 18, and how Spark’s Care‑to‑Career program builds life skills, confidence, and pathways into real jobs in construction, engineering, and tech. It’s a blueprint for post‑care support that trades pity for agency and short‑term fixes for paid futures. Along the way, we touch on her Thrown Away Children books, the power of telling the truth with humour, and the new Foster Care Uncovered podcast she co‑hosts with Sarah Anderson.If you care about children’s mental health, foster care, trauma‑informed practice, or the transition from care to independence, this one will stay with you. Listen, share with a colleague, and leave a review to help more people find these stories—and the hope inside them.Louise’s Bio:Louise is the award-winning author behind the bestselling Thrown Away Children series. Her stories draw from the lived experiences of being part of a foster family. Her brand-new series, Slave Girls, continues her mission to share the real, often unheard stories of children and young people—with courage, honesty, and hope. Through Spark Sisterhood, Louise is building a community where girls from care are met with friendship and essential life and employment skills, and where they are encouraged to believe in themselves and their futures. One of the charity’s most exciting projects is Care to Career, a two-week programme that offers girls jobs, apprenticeships and work experience by working with employers. The programme supports young women aged 18–25. It’s about more than just finding a job, which they do, it’s about creating space for young women to thrive.  Having grown up in care and now fostering children herself, Louise understands the care system from the inside out; she has a unique 360˚ understanding. She is a respected and leading voice. Links:Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/TheSecureStartPodcastPodcast Blog Site: https://thesecurestartpodcast.com/Secure Start Site: https://securestart.com.au/\DisclaimerInformation 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

Send us a textIn this in-depth conversation with John Turberville, CEO of The Mulberry Bush, we explore how therapeutic residential care transforms the lives of children who have experienced trauma, relational ruptures, & multiple placement breakdowns. John reflects on the organisation’s 75-year legacy, the central role of relationships, family work, trust, innovation, & reflective practice, & why high-quality residential care must be seen as a placement of choice—not a last resort—in child protection & out-of-home care.John traces his path from a surveyor in London to therapeutic childcare in The Cotswold, & how mentors & a reflective, psychodynamic culture shaped his leadership. We unpack the Mulberry Bush’s evolution from a renowned residential school into a broader charity that integrates education, therapy, family work, outreach, consulting & accredited training. The through-line is consistent: relationships first. That means working with birth, adoptive & foster families, offering peer groups & residential family weekends, & creating real step-down pathways to stable home life when safe & possible.We dig into why group care matters. When problems surface in groups—families, classrooms, communities—the work belongs in groups too. For some children, especially those overwhelmed by family placements, small therapeutic homes provide the containment & relational density needed to relearn trust. Alumni testimonies cut through policy noise: decades later they credit love, structure & belonging with giving them the “boundaries of life” & the confidence to parent well. John also speaks candidly about staff resilience, supervision & the need to authorise creativity. He argues for regulation that secures safety without smothering innovation, so practitioners can respond flexibly to children who don’t fit a standard mould.Subscribe, share with a colleague, & leave a review telling us: what would you change to set creativity free while keeping children safe?John's Bio:John is the Chief Executive Officer of The Mulberry Bush, a national charity dedicated to transforming the lives of people affected by trauma in their childhood. He leads the development & delivery of an integrated range of specialist therapeutic & educational services, with a focus on expanding the charity’s range & reach & ensuring the highest standards across all services — guided by its three core values: Collaborative Working, a Psychodynamic Approach, & a Reflective Culture.Formerly the School Director & Chief Operating Officer, John became CEO to further develop the charity’s ability to link teaching, research, & practice, aiming to deliver the highest quality services & excellent outcomes.John is Chair of the Community of Communities Advisory Group at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, supporting quality assurance & accreditation for Therapeutic Communities & Therapeutic Child Care settings in the UK & internationally, * is a Therapeutic Communities (TC) specialist, auditing TC prisons.Instagram: @mulberrybushcharity Facebook: The Mulberry Bush Charity LinkedIn: The Mulberry Bush YouTube: @mulberrybushschool Links: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/TheSecureStartPodcastDisclaimer: 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