Attachment and Trauma Informed Practice (ATIP)

Here at the Key Education Centre we have been on a journey of implementing Attachment and Trauma Informed Practice (ATIP) as a framework to underpin all the work we undertake with our pupils. We started almost 3 years ago, with a view of finding a way forward that could offer the most efficacious practice that have the most positive impact on our pupils' outcomes.

We offer a brief description of our journey so far on this page, but for more detailed information, including a description of the frameworks that we utilise, links to relevant resources, staff supervision and further reading, including our monthly articles for the TES, please click on the link below for our dedicated ATIP site.

We also offer a range of different training opportunities to help support schools and community partners that aspire to promote research informed strategies within a range of different domains; please visit the dedicated ATIP site to access further details regarding Outreach Training

If you would like any further information about our ATIP approach and frameworks or our journey, whether to have a relaxed chat or for support and ATIP training for your provision, please do not hesitate to contact us via email on: o.ward@thekey.hants.sch.uk

Please click the link below to access our dedicated ATIP site

ATIP Site

Our Journey

Phase 1: New Beginnings

Our first venture was to enlist a specialist training provider to help plan our route. We enlisted the support of KCA to provide several INSET training sessions, in which we invited colleagues and partners from different agencies in the area, as to start the journey in a collaborative manner.

The training was a huge success, which not only developed our knowledge of ATIP skills, but also improved relationships in the local area, allowing much more effective working relationships

During this time, we setup weekly group supervision sessions for all our staff and offered half-termly supervision sessions to all our external community partners, which proved another really successful venture. Throughout, we under the expert tutelage of our assigned Educational Psychologist Ben, who provided ongoing guidance and support and gave us confidence about our decisions

Phase 2: Honing our Skills

For Phase 2, we enlisted a new training partner and one we are very excited to still be working with. Beacon House are a specialist clinical psychologist trauma specialist unit; we were so keen to work with them that we drove out to plead our case - luckily they agreed and put on a fantastic INSET around developmental trauma, that again we invited our local partners to.

Another part of this phase was to start offering training to local schools and agencies ourselves; this afforded us to keep making strong working relationships with our local partners and help more of their staff utilise the same ATIP approaches that we use in the centre. By the end of phase 2, we estimated that we had delivered our message to over a thousand professionals

Phase 3: A New Site!

In the Autumn of the 2019-20 term, we took over the management of a new site, another Education Centre nearby. Over the year, the training team has been working closely with their staff team to bring them up to speed regarding ATIP best practice and organising the implementation of the weekly supervision sessions. One of our training team is currently working on his PhD and is using this opportunity to study the positive impact that supervision has on reflective practice.

We have also continued to work with the amazing people at Beacon House - we are in the process of organising a bespoke parent & child parallel psycho-education curriculum. We are sure that although now delayed, it will have a significant impact on the outcomes to our pupils come the new academic year!

Our Core Belief: Building Adult Capabilities

We fundamentally believe that in order to get the very best outcomes for our pupils and their families, we need to incorporate the pupil into a holistic system of training and development that encompasses the pupil, our staff, families and all possible community partner, as succinctly described in this video.

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