“Foster parents were hungry for knowledge, strategies and ideas”
Mica Douglas is a psychotherapist and social worker who used to work with children who had been significantly harmed. When she was a therapist for the NSPCC, she found herself working more and more with foster parents. She knew that foster parents were hungry for knowledge, strategies and ideas for how to deal with various kinds of challenging behaviours and defences that children had developed in order to survive.
Mica has used TA to train therapeutic foster parents from the basic introductory TA 101 course through to a Master's degree in Therapeutic Fostering and Adoption, and she uses TA concepts to help foster parents begin to think therapeutically about the children and young people they look after.
Understanding the Drama Triangle, Ego States and transference helps foster parents to deal with children who are pushing all their buttons. The theory helps them to be a positive emotional barometer in their homes no matter what challenges they may be facing.
Mica is managing director of Flourish Fostering, a therapeutic fostering organisation planning to open next year in the south east.
