The Secure Start® Podcast

• #23 Thirty-Five Placements and Counting: Why Some Kids Need a Different Option, with Bruce Henderson

  Send us a textWhat if we've been looking at residential care all wrong? Professor Bruce Henderson, author of "Challenging the Conventional Wisdom About Residential Care for Children and Youth," presents a compelling case for rethinking our approach to caring for vulnerable children.Drawing on over 35 years of experience with Black Mountain Home for Children and his extensive research analysis, Professor Henderson challenges the notion that residential care should be a "last resort" option. He shares the heartbreaking reality of children who bounce between dozens of placements—one young person experienced 35 different homes by age 15—creating devastating disruption in their education, relationships, and development.The conversation explores how residential care has been unfairly maligned, often based on research involving substandard institutional settings that bears little resemblance to high-quality contemporary programs. Professor Henderson explains that the core issue isn't the setting but the quality of care provided. "You can find good and bad versions of every kind of care," he notes, "and to a large degree, the question of quality is a question of building relationships."Professor Henderson advocates for a "children first" approach instead of "family first," emphasizing that each child's unique needs should determine their placement. For some children, especially sibling groups who might otherwise be separated, residential care provides stability, consistent education, and a therapeutic community. The Black Mountain model demonstrates how residential care can be part of a comprehensive array of services including foster care, family reunification, and transition support.This thought-provoking discussion challenges listeners to move beyond ideological preferences about care settings and focus instead on what creates genuine healing and growth for children who've experienced trauma. Join us as we explore how high-quality residential care—when done right—can be an essential option in supporting vulnerable children on their journey toward healthy adulthood.Bio:Bruce is Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Western Carolina University, and is a child psychologist (PhD for Minnesota) whose research until 2018 focused on the development of curiosity and memory in children, and on teaching in higher education. Since then, most of his writing has been about residential care. His book Challenging the Conventional Wisdom about Residential Care for Children and Youth: A Good Place to Grow (Routledge, 2024) is a critical appraisal of the research on residential care and a defense of high-quality residential care for children who need it. For over 35 years, Bruce has been involved with the Black Mountain Home for Children, Youth, and Families, an organization that provides residential care, but also has foster care and adoption services, transitional and independent living programs for older youth, and works to reunite children with their families of origin whenever possible. Bruce lives with his wife Judy in the mountains of Western North Carolina. 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

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• #22 Reimagining Children's Homes: From Last Resort to Purposeful Healing, with Kevin Gallagher

  Send us a textWhat does it really mean to provide therapeutic residential care to traumatised young people? Dr Kevin Gallagher draws from three decades of experience to challenge our assumptions about children's homes and how we use them.Kevin's journey from banking to social work, driven by his own experiences of exclusion and inequality, mirrors the evolution of UK residential care itself. His candid reflections reveal how sophisticated practice develops through mentorship, theoretical understanding, and lived experience.At the heart of this conversation lies a provocative question: why do we wait until children have experienced multiple foster placement breakdowns before considering residential care? These repeated rejections only compound trauma. Kevin makes a compelling case for using residential settings earlier and more purposefully, not as forever homes but as intentional healing environments where young people can feel "loved, welcomed, protected, and encouraged to flourish" during their stay.The discussion navigates the tension between authentic connection and professional boundaries. As Kevin explains, staff must be "open and affected and bothered enough to have real connections" while maintaining sufficient detachment to think objectively. This balance, supported by supervision and reflection, transforms intuitive caring into sophisticated practice.Financial considerations inevitably shape our systems, but Kevin distinguishes between "high cost" interventions (requiring significant resources) and those that are truly "expensive" (delivering poor value). His insights into how economic pressures have reshaped UK care provision over decades offer valuable perspective on similar challenges worldwide.Whether you're a practitioner, student, policymaker or foster carer, this conversation challenges you to reconsider what residential care can and should be. The goal isn't merely containment but transformation—creating environments where traumatised young people can heal, develop, and prepare for their next chapters. As Kevin reminds us: "If it's not therapeutic, what is it?"Kevin's Bio:Kevin is a qualified social worker, organisational consultant, manager and has just completed his PhD. He has worked in residential care and education for almost 30 years (with Amberleigh since 2015), from front line practitioner, through management roles and into leadership in a diverse range of organisational structures, both public and private. Kevins passion is for therapeutic residential care and education, promoting the use of quality improvement standards. He is an Advisory Group member and Therapeutic Care Specialist at the Royal College of Psychiatrists. Kevin has been a trustee of The Consortium for Therapeutic Communities for over a decade, supporting and developing therapeutic practice across the UK, in particular, supporting local authorities to commission specialist provision. Additionally, Kevin assists providers in strengthening models and practice. Kevin is a very public campaigner for better understanding and use of residential care through a focus on practice evidence.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

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• #20 Challenging Last Resort Thinking: Why Some Children Thrive in Residential Care, with Dr Laura Steckley

  Send us a textWhat if everything we think we know about residential childcare is wrong? What if, for some children, it's not the dreaded last resort but actually the best option for healing and growth?Dr. Laura Steckley, who leads the MSc in Advanced Residential Child Care at the University of Strathclyde, brings three decades of practice, research, and teaching experience to challenge our assumptions. Having worked in both the United States and Scotland, she offers a refreshing perspective on what quality residential care can achieve when properly understood and supported.The conversation upends conventional wisdom by revealing research showing many children who've experienced both foster care and residential settings actually prefer the latter. For children who find family environments emotionally threatening due to past trauma, residential care offers unique advantages: multiple caring relationships increasing the chance of meaningful connection, natural breaks preventing relationship burnout, and the therapeutic power of peer groups.Dr. Steckley's groundbreaking research on physical restraint reveals surprising nuance. Rather than viewing restraint as universally negative, she introduces containment theory – a framework for understanding how adults help make "the unmanageable manageable" for distressed children. Her studies found some children reported restraint experiences, when conducted as acts of care rather than control, actually improved their relationships with staff.Perhaps most powerfully, Dr. Steckley asserts that "in the daily minutiae of good care is where healing and developmental ground is regained." This elevates the importance of residential childcare workers and recognizes the complexity of their work. She also explores how shame, possibly our most "uncontainable" emotion, often manifests as rage in traumatized children, and how staff need proper support themselves to provide effective care.The episode concludes with a fascinating discussion of attunement, using the famous "still face" experiment to demonstrate how children escalate behavior when seeking emotional connection – offering a radical reframing of how we might respond to challenging behaviors in care settings.Listen now to gain fresh insights that could transform how you think about caring for our most vulnerable children.Laura's Bio:Dr Laura Steckley leads up the MSc in Advanced Residential Child Care at the University of Strathclyde and so has the very good fortune of doing teaching and learning with residential child care practitioners.  She has worked in direct and indirect practice in both the United States of America and Scotland. Her teaching, research and knowledge mobilisation are mostly addressed to residential child care practice and education, with a particular focus on physical restraint.  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

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• #21 The Science of Prevention: How We Can End Child Maltreatment, with Benjamin Perks

  Send us a textWhat if child maltreatment wasn't an inevitable social problem, but something we could dramatically reduce within a generation? Benjamin Perks, Head of Campaigns and Advocacy at UNICEF, believes this is not only possible but within our grasp.In this compelling conversation, Ben shares his remarkable journey from the residential care system in the UK—where he experienced gang involvement and street life—to becoming a global leader in child protection at the United Nations. The turning point? A teacher who took him under her wing when he was 15, becoming "the first adult I really had a proper conversation with."Ben introduces us to the "Four S's" every child needs: to feel secure, safe, seen, and soothed. When children receive these fundamental experiences from family, they develop resilience against adversity. When family support is lacking, schools become the crucial secondary buffer. What's revolutionary about our moment in history is that we now have the knowledge and resources to ensure every child experiences these four essentials.Drawing powerful parallels to public health victories that reduced child mortality by 61% through simple interventions, Ben outlines how universal parenting programs, extended parental leave, preschool access, and public awareness could achieve similar results with child maltreatment. The economic argument alone is staggering: child maltreatment costs societies up to 12% of GDP, while prevention measures would cost less than 1%.Ben's personal healing journey demonstrates that recovery is possible at any age. After recognizing how his childhood affected his adult life, therapy transformed his world "from black and white to color." This transformation enabled him to break the cycle of insecure attachment with his own son—proof that intergenerational patterns can be disrupted with the right support.Discover more in Ben's book "Trauma Proof: Healing, Attachment and the Science of Prevention," which weaves together scientific research with personal narratives of healing from around the world. Join us in believing that we can be the last generation to accept child trauma as inevitable.About Ben:Benjamin Perks is the Head of Campaigns and Advocacy in the Division of Global Communications and Advocacy  at the United Nations Children’s Fund, based in New York. He leads public and policy advocacy on the development and protection of children. He previously served in human rights diplomacy roles as the UNICEF Representative and UN Resident Coordinator ad interim to both the Republic of North Macedonia and the Republic of Montenegro. In both capacities he advocated for reforms to fulfill international human rights commitments and realization of the Sustainable Development Goals. He has served in Georgia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, India and Albania. He coordinated the Back-to-School campaign in the Northern Afghanistan which brought 3 million children, including 1 million girls, into school-most of them for the first times in their lives. He has led work on demobilization of child solders, deinstitutionalization of children in state care, addressing child poverty, pre-school expansion and  disability inclusion.Edits: Ben is referring to Kevin Brown in relation to the speaker about attachment.When I refer to mosquitoes the study was actually of fleas!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

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• #19 From Winnicott's Piano to Adolescent Minds: Peter Wilson's Journey

  Send us a textA series of serendipities and the opportunity to play Winnicott's piano marked Peter Wilson's remarkable journey into child psychotherapy. In this captivating conversation, Peter reveals how a degree in industrial economics led unexpectedly to founding Young Minds, one of the UK's most influential children's mental health charities.Peter's four years training at the Anna Freud Centre in London during the late 1960s represented a turning point in his life. Working directly with Anna Freud herself, he absorbed the psychoanalytic approach that would define his career spanning more than five decades. His vivid recollections of treating children five times weekly and the intensity of this training provide a window into a therapeutic world that has largely disappeared in our current era.The most provocative thread running through our conversation is Peter's forthcoming book, "The Adolescent and the Psychotherapist: Why I Don't Know Matters." He argues passionately that embracing uncertainty—both in the therapy room and in policy development—opens space for genuine discovery. When teenagers respond with "I don't know" in therapy, Peter sees not resistance but an authentic state of uncertainty deserving respect. Similarly, he challenges the excessive certainty with which cognitive behavioral therapy is promoted as the treatment of choice despite what he considers limited evidence.Peter offers a stinging critique of current mental health service delivery models, particularly how the IAPT program and market-based reforms have fragmented services and created competition rather than collaboration between professional disciplines. His observations about the demoralization of the workforce and the devaluing of relationship-based approaches highlight the human cost of these policy directions.Looking back on his career, Peter wishes he had been more assertive in advocating for psychoanalytic approaches. This reflection reveals a fascinating tension between valuing the humility of "not knowing" while recognizing that sometimes forceful advocacy is needed to protect valuable approaches to understanding human distress. Join us for this profound exploration of a life dedicated to understanding the complexity of children's emotional worlds.Peter's Bio:Peter Wilson is a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist. He qualified  in 1971, having completed his training with Anna Freud in her Centre. Since then, he has worked in a variety of organisations, holding senior positions in all of them.These included three Child Guidance Clinics ( now known as CAMHS), two walk- in Centres for young people, a therapeutic community ( the Peper Harow Community) and the Institute of Psychiatry. Peter founded a national charity, called YoungMinds, the purpose of which was to raise public awareness of children’s mental health and to improve multi- discipline services. Peter later became Clinical Adviser at ThePlace2Be, a national organisation providing counselling services in schools. Peter has maintained a small private child and adolescent psychotherapy practice, and now teaches and provides supervision. He is publishing a book in the autumn, entitled ‘ The Adolescent and the Psychotherapist: why ‘ I don’t’ know’ matters'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

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