Trauma-Informed Practice: Building trust with SEND  families 

When a parent becomes angry in a meeting, sends a hostile email, or seems impossible to engage with, what are you actually seeing?

In most cases it is not a difficult person or someone who doesn't care. It may well be a trauma response as a result of navigating education, health and social care systems that too often failed to listen, dismissed their concerns, used language that excluded them, and made them fight for everything their child needed. By the time that family walks through your setting's door, they may already be at breaking point.

I can offer sessions to help school staff and leaders understand the family experience of SEND from an insider's perspective. Reflecting on my own experiences, I can help enhance understanding of what that weight feels like, how it shapes the way families hear and respond to even well-intentioned communication, and what schools can do differently to build trust rather than compound distress. This is not about blame; its about enabling your team to view things from another viewpoint.

Drawing on research into systems-based trauma and lived experience of navigating the SEND, health and social care systems as a parent, this is not a theoretical overview. It is a practical, human session that gives your whole staff team (teachers, support staff, pastoral leads, office staff and governors) a new way of understanding the families they work with every day.

The format and focus are shaped around what your school needs. This might be a session for your whole staff team, a workshop for your leadership group, a governor briefing, or a combination. Get in touch and we can talk through what would work best for you.