What happens when you have to parent without a map? In this deeply moving and relational conversation, we sit down with care-experienced mum, kinship carer, and Churchill Fellow Terri-Anne Harmer to explore the complexities of raising a family while carrying the lifelong impacts of trauma and the care system.

For many care-experienced parents, the journey of raising children is often shadowed by a "blueprint of fear" - a fear of systems, surveillance, and the terrifying possibility of child removal. This episode breaks the silence on the "invisible" pressures these parents face, moving away from deficit-based narratives to focus on healing, accountability, and the power of community.

Building the Village We Never Had

Terri-Anne shares her personal and professional journey, offering a unique perspective on breaking intergenerational cycles and reclaiming the narrative of care-experienced parenting. We discuss:

• Parenting Through Fear: How trauma responses are frequently misinterpreted as “risk” by professionals, and the need to look beneath behaviour to understand the survival and overwhelm sitting underneath.
• The Power of Connection: The vital role of peer support and relational spaces in helping parents feel genuinely heard, understood, and empowered.
• A New Blueprint: Insights from Terri-Anne’s Churchill Fellowship, exploring how village-based approaches and community advocacy can interrupt cycles of removal and support families of all ages.

Breaking the Cycle of Trauma

Within the conversation, we reflect on the emotional labour of parenting while healing. We consider how childhood histories shape adult relationships, including:

• Neurodiversity and Masking: The intersection of trauma and late-recognition neurodiversity in adulthood.
• Shame and Repair: Navigating vulnerability and accountability within family relationships to foster long-term healing.
• Systemic Change: Why professionals must adopt a trauma-informed lens to support care-experienced families effectively and move toward trust-based practice.

This episode offers a powerful invitation to consider what becomes possible when we move beyond survival and build something different—together.

In This Episode, We Explore

• Parenting while carrying long-term trauma impacts.
• The fear of systems, surveillance, and child removal.
• Healing while raising children and "building a village."
• Neurodiversity, masking, and intergenerational cycles.
• Why professionals need to look beneath behaviour.

Guest: Terri-Anne Harmer Terri-Anne is a care-experienced mum, kinship carer, practitioner, and Churchill Fellow. Alongside her work with the Care Leavers Association, she supports care-experienced adults through community spaces that centre connection and empowerment.

Key Quotes

• “We’re building the village that we didn’t have when we were younger.”
• “Behaviour is not always the thing. What’s underneath it is what’s important.”
• “You can break the cycle.”

Content Note This episode discusses childhood trauma, care experience, parenting, mental health, neurodiversity, child protection processes, family separation, and systemic responses to care-experienced families. Please listen in a way that feels safe for you.

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Episode Description

In this episode of Trauma Informed Conversations, host Jessica Parker welcomes teacher, coach, and author Emma Kell. Drawing on 27 years of classroom experience and her recent book, Real Lives of Teachers, Emma explores the psychological landscape of the teaching profession today.

Moving beyond superficial wellbeing advice, Jess and Emma discuss the concept of moral injury and "compassion stress" - the emotional toll of working within a system that often feels like it is "never enough". They delve into the power of self-efficacy, the necessity of radical appreciation, and how school leaders can foster psychological safety through clear boundaries and transparent communication. This conversation is a vital check-in for any educator or leader navigating the "highs and lows" of the modern school environment.

Key Takeaways

• Wellbeing as Self-Efficacy: Real wellbeing in education isn't about "hot baths"; it is the feeling of making a tangible difference in a child’s life, often measured in smiles and small glimmers of progress.
• The Weight of Moral Injury: Many teachers face a "compassion stress injury" when their values and hard work collide with a system lacking resources and funding.
• Clarity as Psychological Safety: Emma highlights how "perfectionist" clarity in school policies and expectations creates a contained, safe environment for staff to thrive.
• Modelling for Leaders: School leaders are among the most vulnerable to burnout; modelling healthy boundaries—such as respecting "out of office" emails - is essential for a sustainable school culture.
• Stubborn Optimism: Despite systemic challenges, maintaining a sense of "relentless optimism" and celebrating "blossoms" (positive moments) helps educators remain resilient.

Resources Mentioned

• Real Lives of Teachers: Navigating the Highs and Lows of Schools Today by Emma Kell. Available on Amazon.
• Those That Can: Visit www.those-that-can.com for more information on Emma’s coaching and wellbeing facilitation.
• Trauma Informed Consultancy Services (TICS): Visit www.ticservicesltd.com to access live training events, further information on trauma-informed practice, and to contact the team for support.

Guest

Emma Kell is a teacher, coach, and speaker with over 27 years of experience in the classroom. She currently teaches in alternative provision and provides coaching and facilitation on teacher wellbeing, school culture, and communication. Emma is a passionate advocate for the profession, focusing on what helps teachers "survive and thrive" in the modern educational landscape.

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Episode Overview

In this episode of Trauma Informed Conversations, host Jessica Parker is joined by integrative therapist Louise Brooks. As a physically disabled therapist, Louise brings both professional expertise and lived experience to a vital but often overlooked topic: Medical Trauma.

Moving beyond clinical definitions, Jess and Louise explore the cumulative impact of "medical gaslighting" - the exhausting experience of not being believed or having symptoms dismissed by professionals. They discuss how these interactions can create a cycle of shame and anxiety, transforming necessary healthcare into a source of psychological distress. The conversation shifts the focus toward disability-affirmative practice, emphasising how validation and small systemic shifts can restore a sense of safety for patients.

Key Takeaways

• The Weight of Medical Gaslighting: Medical trauma often stems from being told symptoms are "all in your head". This lack of belief can lead to physical trauma responses like nausea, breathlessness, and heart palpitations before future appointments.
• The Burden of Explanation: Many disabled people spend entire therapy or medical sessions explaining their condition. Louise highlights the importance of professionals doing independent research to reduce this "retraumatising" labour for the client.
• Practical Systemic Shifts: Small changes, such as offering double appointments as standard, can provide the extra time needed for cognitive processing or physical transfers, making care truly accessible.
• Disability-Affirmative Therapy: Finding a therapist who is "disability affirmative" means working with someone who understands the social and systemic barriers disabled people face, rather than viewing the disability as something to be "fixed".
• "Not Disabled Yet": A poignant reminder that accessibility is a community responsibility. Whether through physical access or inclusive language, creating safe environments benefits everyone - because many people are simply "not disabled yet".

Resources Mentioned

• Trauma Informed Consultancy Services (TICS): Visit www.ticservicesltd.com to access live training events, further information on trauma-informed practice, and to contact the team for support.
• Disability-Affirmative Resources:
  • Louise's Challenging Ableism CPD Session (11th April 2026)
  • Emotional Respite (Charity)
  • Spokz People - Modules to support people wanting to learn more and an online community for disabled people to join.

Guest

Louise Brooks is an integrative therapist in private practice, specialising in working with physically disabled and neurodivergent clients. Working exclusively online for inclusivity and access, Louise incorporates person-centered therapy, attachment theory, and compassion-focused approaches into her trauma-informed work. As a disabled practitioner, she is a passionate advocate for disability-affirmative care and challenging the ableist structures within the medical and therapeutic fields.

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What happens to care-experienced people as they grow older? In this deeply moving and trauma-informed conversation, we sit down with researcher and storyteller Dr. Rosie Canning to explore the long-term health and wellbeing outcomes for adults who grew up in the care system.

For too long, the narrative around "care leavers" has focused almost exclusively on the transition to adulthood at 18 or 21. This episode breaks that silence, highlighting the continued exclusion of older care-experienced people from policy and research debates. We discuss why this lack of representation urgently needs to change and how Dr. Canning’s research is finally centering these overlooked voices.

From Grassroots Activism to Oxford Research

Rosie shares her incredible personal and creative journey, offering a unique perspective on resilience and reclamation. We discuss:

• The Power of Community: Rosie’s involvement in Occupy London, where she supported the reclaiming of a closed library for community use.
• Lifelong Education: Her experience returning to education later in life to complete her PhD, and how being a "mature student" informed her lens as a researcher and facilitator.
• The Oxford Study: Insight into the significant research exploring health and wellbeing for care-experienced people aged 50+, co-led by Rosie alongside Dr. Jonathan “Jonno” Taylor, Dr. Michele Peters, and Dr. Anna Scott at the University of Oxford.

Understanding the "Invisible Privilege" of Family

Within the conversation, we reflect on the often-unseen privilege of family—of growing older alongside others, having shared histories, and knowing one’s own medical and health narratives. We consider how childhood trauma shapes adult experiences over decades, including:

• The Risk of Retraumatisation: The specific fears and realities of re-entering formal care systems (such as elder care or nursing homes) in later life.
• Belonging vs. Isolation: Moving away from "deficit-based" assumptions to create spaces of recognition, ownership, and belonging for the care-experienced community.
• Policy Evolution: Why current social care policies affecting children in care must evolve to account for the entire "life course" rather than just the immediate aftermath of leaving care.

This research offers a powerful roadmap for what needs to change now to ensure foster care alumni and care-experienced adults are supported at every stage of their lives.

Explore the Research: Read the winter 2026 edition of Care Leavers Connected to dive deeper into the findings discussed in this episode: https://issuu.com/careleaversconnected/docs/care_leavers_connected_winter_edition_2026

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In this episode of Trauma Informed Conversations, host Jessica Parker is joined by TICS Associate Gemma, an expert with over 30 years of experience in the NHS eating disorder field. Recorded in person on a rare sunny day in Yorkshire, the pair explores the vital, yet often overlooked, role that connection and community play in the lives of those experiencing eating distress and eating disorders.

Episode Overview
Moving beyond the common misconceptions that eating disorders are solely about food, weight, or appearance, Jessica and Gemma examine the neurobiology of these conditions. They discuss how disordered eating often functions as a survival-based coping strategy for an overwhelmed nervous system. The conversation shifts the focus from "what is wrong with this behaviour" to "what is this behaviour helping the nervous system cope with," emphasising the importance of moving from blame to curiosity.

Key Takeaways

• Connection is Complex: While connection is generally protective and regulates the nervous system, trauma can make connection feel unsafe, exposing, or even frightening.
• The "Multifactorial" Nature: Eating disorders rarely have a single cause; they sit at the intersection of biological sensitivity, psychological coping, relational experiences, and cultural pressures.
• Breaking the Cycle of Shame: Eating disorders often thrive in secrecy and isolation. Because social rejection activates similar neural pathways to physical pain, reducing shame through safe, non-judgmental connection is vital for recovery.
• The Power of Curiosity: For parents, educators, and colleagues, the shift from judgment to curiosity is key. We should ask ourselves: "I wonder what is feeling unsafe right now?" instead of focusing on compliance.
• Practical Inclusivity: Creating an atmosphere of psychological safety in workplaces and schools includes being flexible with meal times, avoiding comments on appearance, and recognizing that not everyone views social eating as a "safe" or "enjoyable" activity.

Resources Mentioned

• BEAT: The UK's national eating disorder charity. They provide extensive support resources for individuals, parents, and professionals, as well as a "Help Finder" tool to locate local services.
• Trauma Informed Consultancy Services (TICS): Visit ticsltd.com to access live training events, further information on trauma-informed practice, and to contact the team for support.

Guest

Gemma is a dedicated mental health specialist with over 30 years of experience in the field of eating disorders, having begun her career working within the NHS. As a TICS Associate, she now applies this extensive clinical background to her work in training and consultancy. Gemma’s commitment to this field is deeply personal, stemming from her own experiences supporting family members who struggled with eating disorders, which initially drove her to train as a mental health nurse to better understand how to help. Today, she focuses on challenging myths and misconceptions, advocating for an approach that views eating disorders as complex, multi-factorial adaptations rather than mere human weaknesses. Her work emphasises that because recovery is rarely linear, building community and fostering safety are critical "prevention science" tools that allow healing to emerge.

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In this episode, we delve into the often-overlooked nuances of kinship care through the lens of lived experience. While kinship care—being raised by family members or close friends rather than in the general foster care system—is frequently highlighted in policy as a preferred alternative, the voices of the children within these dynamics are rarely centered.

Our host is joined by Blu Mikel, who shares her personal journey of being raised under a kinship guardianship arrangement by her aunt. Together, they deconstruct the "happy-go-lucky" myth of kinship care to reveal the complex layers of identity, "othering," and the silent trauma of displacement.

In this episode, we discuss:

• The Identity Gap: The struggle of living in a family setting where you are "the niece, not the daughter," and how micro-instances—like having a different last name—can impact a child’s sense of belonging.
• The "Unspoken Rule" of Silence: The emotional toll of living in a household where the biological parents and the reasons for removal are "off-limits" topics, leading to internalized shame and lowered self-esteem.
• Systemic Neglect and the 18+ Cliff: The reality of "falling through the gaps" when local authority support vanishes at 18, and why the presumption that kinship care equals lifelong stability is a dangerous policy flaw.
• Adultification and Agency: The duality of being expected to act with adult-like gratitude while having no power or choice regarding contact with birth parents or living arrangements.
• Trauma-Informed Solutions: Why we need a "manual" for kinship dynamics, better financial support for carers, and a community that acknowledges kinship care as a valid—and often traumatic—care experience.

Resources Mentioned:

• Kinship (formerly Grandparents Plus): A leading charity supporting kinship carers.
• NNEC (National Network for the Education of Care Leavers): Supporting care-experienced and estranged students in higher education.
• Care Leavers Association: For definitions and support surrounding care experience.

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Trauma exposure is often associated with blue-light services or clinical roles, but the reality of emotional labour is far wider. In this episode of Trauma Informed Conversations, host Jessica Parker sits down with mental health and suicide prevention consultant Christine Clark to discuss the "quiet weight" carried by those in everyday professions.

From catering kitchens to recycling centres and call centres, the conversation explores how "ordinary" roles often involve absorbing months or years of a person's turmoil. Christine and Jessica challenge the expectation that burnout is "normal" and highlight the physical and psychological toll of staying "steady" for others without receiving containment in return.

This episode is an invitation to rethink where trauma shows up and a reminder that being affected by your work doesn't make you weak—it makes you human. It offers a space to acknowledge the stories we hold and the necessity of human connectivity in finding a way through.

Guests

Christine Clark is a mental health and suicide prevention consultant, trainer, and facilitator with over two decades of experience in the field. As the founder of Koru Consulting Ltd, she leverages her unique professional background—having originally trained and worked as a chef for many years—to explore how trauma and emotional pressure manifest in diverse, "non-traditional" sectors like catering, waste management, and call centres. A Master ASIST (Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training) Trainer, Christine specialises in moving organisations beyond "part of the job" mentalities to foster psychologically safe environments grounded in human connectivity and the "permission to talk".

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Adoption is frequently presented as an endpoint: a “happy ending,” a rescue, a solution. For many adoptees, the story does not end with placement. It continues across the life course, shaped by identity, belonging, nervous system responses, loss, silence, and social expectation.

In this episode of Trauma Informed Conversations (part of the Care-Experienced People mini-series), host Carrie Wilson speaks with Annalisa Toccara-Jones, a PhD researcher, adoptee, and advocate whose work examines adoption as a lifelong experience shaped by narrative power, particularly through media and public storytelling.

The conversation draws on the Adoptee Consciousness Model, developed by adoptee scholars Branco, Kim, Newton, Cooper-Lewter, and O’Loughlin (2025). The model conceptualises adoptee awareness as a non-linear process, moving through recurring phases that include status quo, rupture, dissonance, expansiveness, and agency.

Annalisa discusses how these touchstones can be activated at different points across the life course, often in response to media portrayals, institutional encounters, relationships, or moments when dominant “happy ending” narratives no longer hold. The episode explores the pressure adoptees can feel to be “grateful,” the role of saviourism and moral panic in adoption storytelling, and how adoptees are frequently represented without complexity.

Annalisa also reflects on researching from within the adoptee community, including the emotional labour this entails and the need for boundaries when producing knowledge grounded in lived experience.

This episode invites listeners to move beyond simplified adoption stories and to recognise adoption as a lifelong condition shaped by narrative, power, and social expectation, requiring trauma-informed understanding and space for adoptees to speak without obligation to resolve their experience.

Guest

Annalisa Toccara-Jones is a PhD researcher, adoptee, and advocate whose work explores the lifelong legacies of adoption and the ways adoption is portrayed and understood through media and public narratives. Working through a trauma-informed lens, Annalisa’s research centres adoptee voices and examines how dominant “happy ending” framings can erase complexity, shape identity, and silence lived experience.

Episode Key Themes

• Adoption as a “happy ending” narrative versus adoptees’ lived realities
• Silence, shame, and the impact of being discouraged from speaking about adoption
• Media portrayals: saviourism, moral panic, and “either villain or victim” storytelling
• The expectation of gratitude, and what it obscures about safety and trauma
• Identity, belonging, class, and the specific realities of racialised/transracial experiences
• The emotional labour of researching within your own community and the need for boundaries
• How adoptees reclaim voice through social media and community connection

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