Working with Children Who Are Looked After
Supporting safe, steady and informed practice
Supporting children who are looked after requires confidence, consistency and an understanding of how experiences shape behaviour, trust and relationships over time.
Children who are looked often carry experiences of loss, instability, neglect, abuse or disrupted relationships. These experiences don’t sit neatly in the past. They shape how children respond to others, cope with change and interpret everyday interactions.
At heard LEARNING, we support professionals to feel clearer and more confident in how they respond. Our training focuses on helping adults offer care that feels safe, predictable and compassionate, while recognising the complexity of the systems children are part of.
Our Experience
For over a decade, we’ve worked closely with children who are looked after, alongside the families, foster parents and professionals supporting them. Through this work, we’ve seen the patterns that repeat themselves, even when individual circumstances differ.
We’ve seen how consistent, trauma-informed practice can strengthen relationships and reduce distress. We’ve also seen how difficult it can be for professionals to know how to respond when behaviour feels intense or confusing, particularly when responsibilities are unclear or systems feel fragmented.
What we’ve learned is simple. Most professionals want to do the right thing, but don’t always have language, clarity or shared understanding to support them in the moment. Our role is to make what can feel complicated easier to understand and easier to apply.
Who Is This Training For? ​
This training is designed for anyone supporting children who are looked after or care-experienced young people.
This includes education staff, social care practitioners, residential teams, foster parents, youth workers and others working within the professional network around a child.
If your work brings you into contact with children who are looked after, this training supports confidence, clarity and everyday practice.
Understanding Trauma, Attachment and Adversity
Children who are looked after have experienced adversity, though those experiences are not always visible.
This part of the training explores how trauma can affect brain development, regulation and emotional responses. It looks at why some children find it hard to trust, manage strong emotions or feel safe within relationships, and how behaviour often communicates unmet needs rather than intent.
Complex ideas are explained in plain language, helping professionals respond with greater understanding rather than assumption.
Making Sense of the Care System
For many professionals, the care system can feel difficult to navigate. Roles overlap, decisions are made across teams and communication can break down.
This training supports a clearer understanding of who is involved in a child’s care and why. It explores how social workers, foster parents, education proffesionals, health professionals, advocates and reviewing officers contribute to a child’s safety, stability and wellbeing.
By understanding how decisions are made and how different roles connect, professionals are better placed to communicate clearly and work more collaboratively.
A Child’s Care Journey
Children’s experiences of care are shaped not just by where they live, but by how transitions and decisions are managed.
We explore the typical stages of a child’s journey into care, including planning, placement, reviews and change over time. Time is spent reflecting on how each stage may feel for a child, and how professional responses can either increase uncertainty or support stability.
Keeping the child’s voice central is woven throughout, recognising the importance of feeling seen and heard within systems that can otherwise feel overwhelming.
How we deliver the training
Training is delivered in ways that fit the realities of professional life.
Sessions can take place in person or online, depending on what works best for your team. Workshops can be delivered as half-day or full-day sessions, with pacing agreed in advance.
Every session begins with a planning conversation so the training can be shaped around your setting, your roles and the children you support. Nothing is delivered as a standard package.
Next Steps
If you’d like to strengthen how your team supports children who are looked after, we’re happy to talk things through.
Training usually begins with a no-obligation conversation to understand your setting, challenges and priorities. From there, we shape a session that fits your team and supports practice that feels steadier and more informed.
Supporting children who are looked after means supporting the adults around them too.
Let’s Make It Happen
If your team is ready to move from uncertainty to confidence, and from reacting to understanding, we’d love to support you.
Contact us today to book your no obligation call.
