Our Mission, Vision and Values
We are a social enterprise created by psychologists with a focus on relationships, human connections and attachments. We believe that relationships are central to our human nature, our health and our happiness.
We have all worked in the NHS for many years and care deeply about the importance of universal access to health and social care. We have also witnessed the toll that the current climate has taken on the NHS and the people who continue to work within it. This has motivated us to explore what the alternatives might look like.
What do our local families, communities and services think is missing that might help nurture healthier relationships?
How can we connect our own knowledge and ideas with others who have different perspectives?
How can we best think creatively together about building networks of secure relationships from the ground up?
How can we create an organisation or support other organisations in working with psychologically informed principles including attachment, trauma-informed working and compassion?
We see health and wellbeing as connected with the relationships that surround us. From pregnancy, babies and children are dependent on the others around them and all aspects of their development are shaped by their experiences with others. Similarly, the experience of parents and others caring for children is hugely influenced by their relationships to their wider community, to the messages that society gives them and to the support that they are offered from professional systems.
Figure 1. Four Layers of Relationships to Consider
Often services are divided into those for adults and those for children and young people, without adequately recognising the complex interplay between the wellbeing of different members of a nuclear family, wider family or community system.
We believe that we need to pay attention to all of these relationships in different ways in order to give every individual and family the best opportunity to thrive.
For these reasons, we are committed to providing a family sensitive service. This means that when we are working with individuals on self-identified goals, we will work to include their family members in line with their wishes - this could also mean single session family consultation meetings, a joint session with someone's partner or parent, or child. However, at other times, it might mean working with the family system that we have internalised, or have memories of, including people we are no longer in touch with.
We have also developed a tiered model of engagement and intervention, with broader, community focused offers at the base, support, coaching and enhancing psychologically informed practice in the middle tiers, and specialist psychological interventions on the top tier.
Figure 2. Tiered Model of Engagement and Intervention
We welcome self-funding individuals and families, we also accept referrals and payment from local authorities and insurance companies. We also accept work from organisations, including staff wellbeing work, training, consultation and reflective practice.
We are particularly keen, however, to ensure that our offer is as accessible as possible. We are therefore pursuing funding for specific projects or to support our flexible fee approach with subsidised places. We are keen to collaborate with, share knowledge with and support other services with similar aims and missions to our own.
