Most of the young people who come to live with us at CareVisions have had very poor experiences of being parented. Often, from the very outset of their lives, they have not enjoyed the emotional, social and physical nurture necessary for their healthy development, many of them having experienced chronic stress and trauma from a very early age. 

They have therefore enjoyed limited opportunities to experience secure, healthy attachments which we know provide the fundamental building blocks for our neuro-physiological, social and emotional development. It is through these attachments that we learn, amongst many things, to make sense of ourselves and the world in which we live, to regulate our emotions and to relate positively to others.

Consequently they are left with critical deficits in their emotional development which severely impair their ability to survive in, enjoy and make sense of the world. Indeed, they have often developed many thought patterns and maladaptive behaviours designed to help them to make sense of and survive in what has often been a hostile world, beliefs and behaviours which are deeply imbedded within them and therefore highly resistant to change.

At CareVisions we understand that these effects of severe neglect and/or trauma don’t just go away with time or by removing their source. We know that the young people face a long, anxious and, at times, highly distressing journey to reach recovery, throughout which they require high levels of specialist support, understanding and care.

To support the young people on this journey, it is therefore necessary to construct an environment which can both contain that anxiety and distress as well as assist them in constructing new meanings for themselves and laying down new patterns of behaviour.

We recognise that we are expecting much of the young people by asking them to abandon some of their core beliefs and to place their trust, often for the first time, in adults by surrendering control of their lives to them and allowing themselves to be parented.

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