Épisodes

  • Kinship Care, Family Support & Early Intervention | Bobby Dean | Care Visions Professional Talk

    Kinship Care, Family Support & Early Intervention | Bobby Dean | Care Visions Professional Talk
    Oct 7 2026

    What happens when a young person can no longer live with their parents and someone within their wider family steps in?

    Bobby Dean shares his own experience of going to live with his grandparents as a teenager and the stability they gave him at a difficult point in his life.

    Years later, Bobby discovered there was a name for what his grandparents had done: kinship care.

    In conversation with Humphrey Hawksley, he explores the pressures facing kinship carers, the importance of early support, and what can happen when families are left to manage complex situations without enough help.

    They also discuss support for young people, unpaid carers, education, mental health, social care and why investing earlier can help prevent much greater difficulties later.

    A conversation about family, responsibility, support and what can happen when someone is there to step in at the right moment.

    Care Visions Talks is a UK podcast sharing conversations on parenting, fostering, care experience and supporting families.

    Explore all episodes and resources:
    https://carevisionsfostering.co.uk/care-visions-family-talk

    Listen and follow:

    Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/care-visions-talks/id1819875561

    Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2cG6jiszfjSBvyLsFjfpre

    YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@CareVisionsTalks

    Follow on social media:

    Instagram: https://instagram.com/carevisionstalks

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    https://carevisionsfostering.co.uk/care-visions-family-talk

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    41 min
  • Is Depression Really a Chemical Imbalance? | Prof Joanna Moncrieff | Care Visions Family Talk

    Is Depression Really a Chemical Imbalance? | Prof Joanna Moncrieff | Care Visions Family Talk
    Sep 23 2026

    For decades, depression has often been explained as a chemical imbalance in the brain. Professor Joanna Moncrieff argues that the evidence simply doesn’t support that explanation.

    In this episode of Family Talk, Lucy Johnston speaks with Joanna about the serotonin theory of depression, what antidepressants actually do and why Joanna believes their effects may be better understood as altering or blunting emotions rather than correcting an underlying abnormality.

    They discuss the origins of the chemical imbalance theory, antidepressant effectiveness, emotional numbing, withdrawal, sexual side effects and long-term use.

    Lucy also challenges Joanna about one of the most difficult areas of the debate: antidepressants and young people. What happens when a child or teenager is severely depressed? What about suicide and self-harm? And if medication isn’t the answer, what should we actually do?

    Joanna also responds to criticism of her research, considers whether some forms of depression could have biological components, and explains why she believes mental health treatment needs a fundamental rethink.

    The conversation broadens into the pressures facing people today — particularly young people — including education, employment, housing, financial insecurity and anxiety, and asks whether society has begun to medicalise some of the ordinary distress that comes with difficult lives.

    A challenging and thought-provoking conversation about how we understand depression — and what that understanding means for the way we try to help people.

    Please note: This episode includes discussion of suicide, self-harm and mental health difficulties.

    Care Visions Talks is a UK podcast sharing conversations on parenting, fostering, care experience and supporting families.

    Explore all episodes and resources:
    https://carevisionsfostering.co.uk/care-visions-family-talk

    Listen and follow:

    Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/care-visions-talks/id1819875561

    Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2cG6jiszfjSBvyLsFjfpre

    YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@CareVisionsTalks

    Follow on social media:

    Instagram: https://instagram.com/carevisionstalks

    Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CareVisionsTalks

    Join our mailing list for new episodes, events and updates:
    https://carevisionsfostering.co.uk/care-visions-family-talk

    Subscribe to stay connected with Care Visions Talks.
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    44 min
  • What Children in Care Really Need - Mirela Zoltan on Trauma, Trust & Belonging | Care Visions Professional Talk

    What Children in Care Really Need - Mirela Zoltan on Trauma, Trust & Belonging | Care Visions Professional Talk
    Sep 9 2026

    Mirela Zoltan spent the first three years of her life in an orphanage in Romania before being adopted and taken to the United States.

    What followed was a childhood marked by disrupted relationships and repeated moves through adoptive, foster and residential settings.

    Mirela was frequently seen as a child with challenging behaviour. Looking back, however, she describes something much simpler underneath it: she wanted to be loved, wanted and listened to. She needed connection and a sense of belonging.

    Then she met Elizabeth.

    After being let down repeatedly by adults, Mirela didn’t trust Elizabeth’s promise that she would help find her biological family. She tested her, pushed her away and waited for another person to leave.

    Elizabeth didn’t.

    Mirela credits that relationship with changing her life. Elizabeth stood by her, believed in her, validated her feelings and eventually helped her reconnect with her biological family in Romania.

    In this deeply personal conversation with Humphrey Hawksley, Mirela describes what her experiences taught her about trauma, behaviour, trust and belonging.

    Danny Henderson from Care Visions joins the conversation to reflect on Mirela’s experiences through the lens of contemporary residential childcare and relational practice.

    Now working within the care system herself, Mirela has a clear message for professionals supporting children and families: listen to what people are communicating, including through their behaviour. Validate their feelings. Meet them where they’re at.

    Because sometimes what changes a life is profoundly simple:

    someone listens, someone believes you, and someone stays.

    Content note: This episode contains descriptions of childhood neglect, abuse and traumatic experiences within care settings.

    Care Visions Talks is a UK podcast sharing conversations on parenting, fostering, care experience and supporting families.

    Explore all episodes and resources:
    https://carevisionsfostering.co.uk/care-visions-family-talk

    Listen and follow:

    Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/care-visions-talks/id1819875561

    Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2cG6jiszfjSBvyLsFjfpre

    YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@CareVisionsTalks

    Follow on social media:

    Instagram: https://instagram.com/carevisionstalks

    Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CareVisionsTalks

    Join our mailing list for new episodes, events and updates:
    https://carevisionsfostering.co.uk/care-visions-family-talk

    Subscribe to stay connected with Care Visions Talks.
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    45 min
  • Could We One Day Help Identify ADHD by Looking at the Brain? | Dr Monica Berntsen | Care Visions Family Talk

    Could We One Day Help Identify ADHD by Looking at the Brain? | Dr Monica Berntsen | Care Visions Family Talk
    Aug 26 2026
    Could we one day help identify ADHD by looking at the brain?That is the question at the beginning of this episode of Care Visions Family Talk, in which Lucy speaks with Dr Monica Berntsen, introduced as a practising neuropsychologist who has spent more than a decade working with people with ADHD and autism. The discussion begins with the way ADHD is currently assessed.Dr Berntsen describes existing assessment as heavily subjective and questionnaire-based. She says that what is now known about the brain can potentially be used to “highlight and enhance assessments”, while stressing that this would not remove the existing methods or the clinician. Lucy asks why that subjectivity matters.Dr Berntsen describes ADHD as an observable pattern of behaviour that can cause implications for work, education, relationships and other areas affecting quality of life. But she says symptoms alone do not tell the whole story because someone can have attention deficits or hyperactivity profiles without those necessarily being ADHD. She discusses a number of theories about ADHD and then looks at how its description has changed over time.Dr Berntsen talks about an early emphasis on hyperactivity, the later introduction of attention into the picture, attention deficit disorder and eventually the recognition of ADHD in adults. She also discusses changes to symptom thresholds and says referrals have increased beyond the clinical capacity available to see people. Subjectivity and bias are another part of the conversation.Dr Berntsen says different clinicians can interpret diagnostic criteria differently. She specifically discusses women and girls and says they can present differently from the stereotypical “bouncing off the wall kid”. The conversation then turns to genetics and environment.Dr Berntsen discusses the biopsychosocial theory and describes an interaction between genetics and environment. She says people can have genes that never activate and genes that do activate when they are in an environment where their predispositions become live. The discussion then moves to the increase in ADHD numbers. Lucy asks whether the increase is down to the environment, or whether it could be related to the way some diagnoses are being made. Dr Bernsten talks about people looking for explanations for why they struggle to meet the demands of their lives. She also discusses social media, awareness of ADHD symptoms and the fact that symptoms associated with ADHD can relate to other things. Trauma, sleep and stress are discussed too.Dr Berntsen uses the idea of mental “tokens” to describe resources. She gives an example in which somebody has a certain number of tokens available but the demands of their day cost more than they have.She says that if someone does not sleep well, those resources are not replenished. Stress and anxiety also cost resources, and she says cognitive functions including executive function, planning and organising can then be affected.Those difficulties, she says, can “absolutely look like ADHD but isn't”. Lucy then asks why the twenty-first century should be particularly stressful given the wars, recessions, poverty and other environmental stresses experienced in previous decades and centuries.Dr Berntsen talks about pressure to be “good enough”, approval and disapproval, community, support around families and children spending more time on devices. The conversation then asks what ADHD itself means.Dr Berntsen says this depends on which theory is being applied. She gives her own perspective that ADHD is “probably a normal variant” of how brains have evolved to process attention, engagement and motivation.She says:“I don't think it's a disorder, to be honest.”Lucy asks about phones, social media, stimulation and school pressure.Dr Berntsen says she does not think what has changed is children’s brains. She says what has changed is the amount of information processing they are being subjected to and the expectations placed on them. They then discuss why a child can concentrate for hours on something they love but not for twenty minutes in school.Dr Berntsen says they get more reward from the activity they enjoy than from somebody talking about something in which they are only mildly or moderately interested. Lucy also asks what ADHD looks like when it is not hyperactive.Dr Berntsen describes lack of motivation, lack of interest, difficulty making decisions, difficulty starting things, moving between tasks without completing them and hearing the first part of an instruction but forgetting the rest. She says these things can appear from the outside as laziness or as though someone cannot be bothered to listen. The psychological effect of being treated in this way is discussed next.When Lucy asks about the cost of spending years believing or being told that you are lazy or disorganised, Dr Berntsen answers “psychological impairment”. She talks about confidence, self-esteem,...
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    45 min
  • Family Finding & Kinship Care: Why Relationships Matter | Kevin Campbell | Care Visions Professional Talk

    Family Finding & Kinship Care: Why Relationships Matter | Kevin Campbell | Care Visions Professional Talk
    Aug 12 2026
    What happens when a child or young person in care is described as having “nobody”?For Kevin Campbell, that question became the starting point for research that would ultimately challenge some deeply established assumptions within child welfare.In this episode of Care Visions Professional Talk, Humphrey Hawksley speaks with Kevin Campbell of Pale Blue and Family Finding about family connection, kinship care, child development and what happens when children become separated from the relationships around which their lives have developed.Kevin explains that the origins of Family Finding go back around two decades, when he and colleagues began looking at some of the longest-waiting young people within out-of-home care systems in the United States.They wanted to test a fundamental claim: did these young people genuinely have nobody?Kevin describes research involving around 50,000 young people across the United States and British Columbia. For young people who had often been characterised as having no family available to them, the research found approximately 100–300 living adult relatives on average.From those networks, Kevin says an average of five to eight adults came forward wanting a lifelong relationship with the young person — producing a rate of 94%.That result changed the direction of his work.The conversation goes much further than the practical process of locating relatives.Humphrey asks Kevin what family connection actually means and why biological and pre-existing relationships can be so important to children.Kevin discusses emerging understanding from neuroscience, genomics and biological science and argues that the connection between a child and the people around whom they have developed cannot simply be understood as a social preference.Even where separation takes place for legitimate reasons, he argues, separation itself has consequences.Kevin reflects on his own experience as a foster parent to teenagers and how research into the outcomes of young people leaving care forced him to question some of the assumptions on which care systems had been built.The conversation also looks at the often-repeated idea that a child needs only one stable adult.Kevin agrees that the evidence supporting the importance of a consistent adult relationship is powerful, but argues that another question now needs to be considered: who is that adult?Children do not develop independently of parents, family, culture and community. Their relationships are part of the environment in which their brains, bodies and regulatory systems develop.This leads into a wider discussion about family separation.Kevin draws on the history of the Red Cross and international family tracing following war, disaster and civil unrest. He discusses the international recognition of families' right to know the fate of separated relatives and asks what lessons that history might hold for modern child welfare systems.The distinction becomes particularly important when considering children.Unlike adults, children are still developing.Kevin describes children's extraordinary ability to adapt to their environments as a human “superpower”. But those adaptations can also reflect the adversity, uncertainty and disruption they experience.The discussion examines what happens when early adversity is followed by removal from family, placement instability, changing caregivers and broken relationships.Kevin describes this as “compositional adversity”: different experiences accumulating and interacting across childhood rather than adversity being treated as a single isolated event.This has significant implications for how behaviour is understood.Instead of seeing a young person's behaviour simply as a psychiatric or psychological problem requiring treatment, Kevin argues that professionals should also consider the adaptations the young person has made in order to survive what has happened to them.If children can adapt in response to adversity, they also retain the capacity to adapt to new experiences.For Kevin, that makes the environment of relationships and support surrounding a child critically important.The conversation also considers whether systems are beginning to change.Kevin points to Los Angeles County as a major example. He describes a system that had around 60,000 children in care in the early 1990s and says that figure is now below 12,000.He explains how dedicated family-engagement workers have been introduced alongside social workers, creating additional capacity specifically to find, engage and build relationships with family and other people already connected to a child.Kevin says some Los Angeles offices now average around 80% kinship placements, including extended relatives, non-offending parents and people who already had a meaningful relationship with the child.He then discusses efforts to replicate Family Finding approaches internationally, including work in Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, Belgium and the United ...
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    44 min
  • Are We Medicalising Childhood? | Dave Clements on Special Educational Needs | Care Visions Family Talk

    Are We Medicalising Childhood? | Dave Clements on Special Educational Needs | Care Visions Family Talk
    Jul 29 2026
    Why are so many children struggling?One in five children is now identified as having a special educational need — a significant increase over the past decade. Are children who were previously overlooked finally being recognised, or are ordinary childhood difficulties increasingly being understood as medical conditions?In this episode of Care Visions Family Talk, Lucy speaks with Dave Clements, author of The Crisis in the Classroom, a former school governor and the father of a son diagnosed with autism and ADHD.Dave argues that several different issues have become entangled within the special educational needs system. Some children have profound and complex needs but remain stuck on waiting lists, without an appropriate school place or without the specialist support they require. At the same time, he believes other behavioural, educational, social and cultural difficulties may be too quickly understood through diagnostic labels.The conversation explores whether diagnoses have become a way for parents and schools to unlock scarce resources, and whether that has contributed to an overwhelmed and increasingly unaffordable system.Lucy and Dave discuss:• Why more children are struggling with behaviour, anxiety, attendance and learning• Whether children’s needs have increased or childhood is being described differently• The difference between identifying a difficulty and understanding its cause• ADHD, autism and the subjectivity involved in some diagnoses• Why both underdiagnosis and inappropriate labelling may exist at the same time• Education, Health and Care Plans and the competition for limited resources• Whether a rights-based system has created unintended incentives• Children with profound needs who are still being left without proper provision• Whether diagnoses have become the currency through which support is accessed• How labels can affect children’s identity, confidence and sense of agency• The development and institutionalisation of the neurodiversity movement• Whether mainstream inclusion always gives children the education they need• Why specialist provision may still be necessary for some children• Whether support should be determined by diagnosis or by a child’s ability to function• The loss of childhood freedom, independence and manageable risk• Smartphones and social media as a cause of difficulty or a symptom of wider change• Why adults and parents may feel less confident exercising authority• The growing reliance on experts, assessments and professional intervention• How schools, parents and communities could take a more active role• Why parents need to trust their own understanding of their childrenDave’s central argument is that children themselves have not fundamentally changed, but the world around them has.He believes reduced independence, weaker communities, uncertainty among adults, pressure on schools and an increasing reliance on labels have all shaped the difficulties children now face.The conversation also recognises that some children genuinely require specialist assessment, provision and external support. Dave argues that the challenge is distinguishing those needs more clearly, while helping parents, teachers and communities address other difficulties without automatically handing responsibility to a diagnosis or an expert.The Crisis in the Classroom by Dave Clements is available now.Subscribe to Care Visions Family Talk for honest conversations about parenting, childhood, education, mental health and the challenges facing families today.Care Visions Talks is a UK podcast sharing conversations on parenting, fostering, care experience and supporting families.Explore all episodes and resources:https://carevisionsfostering.co.uk/care-visions-family-talkListen and follow:Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/care-visions-talks/id1819875561Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2cG6jiszfjSBvyLsFjfpreYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@CareVisionsTalksFollow on social media:Instagram: https://instagram.com/carevisionstalksFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/CareVisionsTalksJoin our mailing list for new episodes, events and updates:https://carevisionsfostering.co.uk/care-visions-family-talkSubscribe to stay connected with Care Visions Talks.
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    1 h et 4 min
  • Family Finding and the Power of Connection | Elizabeth Wendel | Care Visions Professional Talk

    Family Finding and the Power of Connection | Elizabeth Wendel | Care Visions Professional Talk
    Jul 15 2026
    What happens when a child is moved away from danger but, in the process, also loses the network of relationships connecting them to their family, community, history and identity?In this episode of Professional Talk, Humphrey Hawksley speaks with Elizabeth Wendel, President and Co-founder of Pale Blue and an internationally recognised expert in Family Finding™ and Family Seeing™.Elizabeth explains the principle at the heart of Family Finding: everybody has somebody, and they can be found if we are willing to try.She challenges professionals to think beyond placement and physical safety alone, asking what may also be lost when children are separated from their original relationships. Removal may sometimes be necessary, but Elizabeth argues that foster care, adoption and residential care should not automatically require the disappearance of a young person’s family, community or “original soil”.The conversation explores how relationships help regulate the body’s response to stress. Elizabeth describes this process as buffering: the experience of having a stable person who can say, “I know this is difficult, but I am not going anywhere. We can manage it together.”She also explains the difference between Family Finding and Family Seeing. Finding involves identifying and reconnecting people within a young person’s network. Seeing begins once those people have been found: bringing complex family networks together, acknowledging generations of separation and pain, and helping families rediscover their own knowledge and capacity.Elizabeth shares the deeply personal story of Marella, a young woman she first met at 16 following two disrupted adoptions. Marella had become, in Elizabeth’s words, “lethally lonely” and had built an understanding of her life around the belief that nobody wanted her.Through Family Finding, Elizabeth and her colleagues located Marella’s mother, father and ten siblings across Romania. The process could not remove everything Marella had experienced, but it allowed her to learn her real history rather than continuing to fill the unanswered spaces herself. Their relationship later developed into what Elizabeth describes as a moral adoption, when Marella asked Elizabeth to become her mother.The discussion also considers truth-telling within child welfare. Elizabeth speaks candidly about the harm that professionals and systems can cause, even when they are acting with good intentions, and why acknowledging that harm is essential to improving practice.Danny Henderson of Care Visions joins the conversation to reflect on safeguarding, bureaucracy, moral injury and the danger of reducing complex human relationships to administrative processes. Together, they consider how professionals can protect children while still making space for family, identity, contradiction and belonging.Elizabeth Wendel, MSW, LSW, is President and Co-founder of Pale Blue. She has helped reconnect more than 10,000 young people with over 26,000 family and supportive relationships, influencing child-welfare practice internationally. She also advises governments and major healthcare organisations and writes on trauma-informed practice, organisational culture, economic justice and lifelong family connections.This is the first of two Professional Talk conversations exploring Family Finding and Family Seeing. The second features Pale Blue co-founder and Family Finding author Kevin Campbell.Content note: This episode includes discussion of disrupted adoption, family separation and suicidal distress.Care Visions Talks is a UK podcast sharing conversations on parenting, fostering, care experience and supporting families.Explore all episodes and resources:https://carevisionsfostering.co.uk/care-visions-family-talkListen and follow:Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/care-visions-talks/id1819875561Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2cG6jiszfjSBvyLsFjfpreYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@CareVisionsTalksFollow on social media:Instagram: https://instagram.com/carevisionstalksFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/CareVisionsTalksJoin our mailing list for new episodes, events and updates:https://carevisionsfostering.co.uk/care-visions-family-talkSubscribe to stay connected with Care Visions Talks.
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    43 min
  • Behaviour Is Communication | Sarah Naish on Therapeutic Parenting | Care Visions Family Talk

    Behaviour Is Communication | Sarah Naish on Therapeutic Parenting | Care Visions Family Talk
    Jul 1 2026

    What is a child really trying to say through difficult behaviour?
    In this episode of Family Talk, Lucy Johnston speaks with Sarah Naish about therapeutic parenting, childhood trauma, boundaries, emotional regulation and why behaviour is often a sign of an unmet need.

    Sarah explains why standard parenting approaches do not always work for children who have experienced trauma, and why children may struggle to link cause and effect when they are living in survival mode. She also explores the difference between gentle parenting and therapeutic parenting, the importance of firm but fair boundaries, and why carers need to understand the child behind the behaviour.

    The conversation also covers screens, smartphones, social media, misdiagnosis, ADHD, autism, attachment, compassion fatigue and why Sarah prefers the phrase “essential maintenance” instead of self-care.

    A practical and honest conversation for parents, foster carers, adoptive parents, kinship carers, teachers, social workers and anyone supporting children with complex needs.

    Family Talk is part of Care Visions Talks, exploring the challenges of raising children in today’s world.


    Care Visions Talks is a UK podcast sharing conversations on parenting, fostering, care experience and supporting families.

    Explore all episodes and resources:
    https://carevisionsfostering.co.uk/care-visions-family-talk

    Listen and follow:

    Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/care-visions-talks/id1819875561

    Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2cG6jiszfjSBvyLsFjfpre

    YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@CareVisionsTalks

    Follow on social media:

    Instagram: https://instagram.com/carevisionstalks

    Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CareVisionsTalks

    Join our mailing list for new episodes, events and updates:
    https://carevisionsfostering.co.uk/care-visions-family-talk

    Subscribe to stay connected with Care Visions Talks.
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    1 h et 4 min