Who this is for

Adoption practitioners and managers (Voluntary Adoption Agencies, Regional Adoption Agencies, Local Authorities, and independent social workers), children’s social care services, children and family social workers, foster carers, kinship carers, and other professionals working with children and families.

Details

Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (DDP), developed by Dan Hughes, is an approach designed to support children who have experienced trauma within the family. It functions both as a therapeutic intervention—offering direct support to the child alongside their parent—and as a model for parenting.

DDP-informed parenting helps parents build strong emotional connections with their children, increasing their sense of safety and security. The model recognises that many traumatised children can fear emotional closeness and supports them to overcome these fears and begin to heal. At the heart of DDP is the attitude of PACE (playfulness, acceptance, curiosity and empathy), which draws on the emotional regulation and reflective capacity of both therapists and parents, promoting greater security for the child and, within parenting, being combined with appropriate behavioural support.

Polly is amazing, very calm and very attentive listening skills . She delivered the training
beautifully. – Attendee 2026

This training session will explore the DDP model and its application in both therapeutic settings and parenting practice. It will introduce the neurobiological theories underpinning DDP, explore key principles of the model, and consider the concept of blocked care alongside the importance of carer wellbeing and resilience. The session will also support reflection on your own nervous system and examine the significant role that professionals play in offering co-regulation to families.

It was an incredible training. – Attendee 2026

Learning 0utcomes

• Understand the DDP model and its application as a therapy
• Understand the principles of DDP-informed parenting support
• Understand the usefulness of this model for adoptive parents and their children
• Consider examples of DDP in practice

About the Trainer

Polly Nugent

Polly qualified as a Clinical Psychologist in 2009. She then worked in Bristol’s looked after and adopted children specialist CAMHS team for 10 years, where she used DDP principles throughout her work. She has a broad range of experience in offering DDP to families with complex needs, has provided supervision to a range of professionals developing their DDP practice, and has delivered extensive training to both parents/carers and professionals.

Polly is now in private practice, offering therapy to families, supervision to professionals, as well as group work and training. Alongside her strong commitment to DDP and relational approaches to working with trauma, she also has a keen and developing interest in polyvagal theory and what it can offer in terms of wellbeing, resilience and regulation.

Instructions

A member of staff will be in touch with attendees one week prior to the event to share a pre-event delegate pack.

If you have any questions regarding this webinar, please contact us at [email protected]. We will aim to answer your query within two working days.

CVAA accept online payments only. In case you do not have instant access to your company card, we suggest using your personal card instead to book a training event and claim it back with your agency in your expenses. Requesting an invoice to pay for our standard practice events is not possible.

Who this is for

Adoption practitioners and managers (Voluntary Adoption Agencies, Regional Adoption Agencies, Local Authorities, and independent social workers), children’s social care services, children and family social workers, foster carers, kinship carers, designated teachers, and other professionals working with children and families.

Details

This is an interactive training course to help supporting adoption professionals to improve relationships by recognising and resolving compassion fatigue and blocked care in adoption and fostering. This course helps supporting professionals who are working with parents that are caring for Traumatised children to identify and manage compassion fatigue.

“The speakers were absolutely brilliant and spoke around the subject very well giving an insight into the topic.” – Attendee, November 2022

This course will cover neuro diversity and blocked care and will also include information on secondary trauma and grief for adopters.

Our trainers Sarah Naish and Sarah Dillon at The Centre of Excellence in Child Trauma will support professionals to identify and reject the usual ‘blame and withdraw’ model’, where there is actual or likely disruption, allowing them to work intensively alongside the parents, engaging in the ‘Therapeutic Parenting’ model.

“I loved all of it, the best course I have been on. Informative, personal and made so much sense.” – Attendee, November 2022

They will provide comprehensive information around how blocked care happens, changes in the brain and how we can overcome it and reconnect to our children.

Learning outcomes

• Understand the term Compassion Fatigue
• Understand how Compassion Fatigue happens
• Learn about strategies to overcome Compassion Fatigue and blocked care
• Identify the symptoms of Compassion Fatigue and give them strategies to manage and interrupt Compassion Fatigue

About the trainers

Sarah Naish and Sarah Dillon

More details to follow

Instructions

A member of staff will be in touch with attendees one week prior to the event to share a pre-event delegate pack.

If you have any questions regarding this webinar, please contact us at [email protected]. We will aim to answer your query within two working days.

CVAA accept online payments only. In case you do not have instant access to your company card, we suggest using your personal card instead to book a training event and claim it back with your agency in your expenses. Requesting an invoice to pay for our standard practice events is not possible.