​Raphael Lopez de Soto

Children in Care & Adoption Consultancy​

​​My experience in adoption and permanency and post adoption has given me a unique opportunity to integrate current thinking in attachment, and the science of parenting into care planning for children in local authority care, and for matching prospective adopters to children. My specialist knowledge and experience of working with childhood trauma in children and in adults enables me to assess and recommend effective solutions for children and families displaying complex and confusing ways of being.

 

Parenting & Sibling Assessments

​Parent and sibling assessment are vital in making evidence based decisions in child care planning. Parenting capacity assessments highlight the quality of the relationship between parents and children. Parenting assessments include an analysis of risk and give full recommendations on how to proceed. An essential element of the assessment is the capacity for change and the likelihood of this change happening within recommended timescales. Sibling assessments are useful when planning for a child's long term care out of the birth family, such as in adoption. Assessing the sibling relationship is important especially in cases of, or potentials for, inter sibling abuse.

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Clinical Supervision​

​​Clinical supervision is an essential requirement for safe and effective therapy practice. I use my experience and creative approach to explore and examine the client therapist relationship and wider network. I run both clinical supervision groups and individual supervision. I offer a safe, open space and welcome and value the difference in people, ways of working and clinical frame. I believe supervision at times will overlap into a therapeutic space in that some healing and exploration may take place, and insight gained. Supervision has a restorative, educational and reflective function.

 

Reflective Practice for Caring Professionals​​

​​Reflective practice is a safe contained space where exploration around the impact that work has on both the individual and on the team. I offer reflective practice to Social Workers, Specialist Nurses, Teachers, Residential & Refuge Workers and Health & Mental Health Professionals. ​Having a space to effectively reflect on case work and more fully understand the complex dynamics within a team or with a client can build resilience and reduce stress and burnout and enable effective case management.

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Training

I design and deliver specialist and bespoke training to suit individual team requirements. I also design specialist training for professionals who work with children, adolescents and families, including working with children who have been affected by domestic abuse, working with trauma, attachment, Therapeutic Re-parenting, understanding adolescents, Sandplay Therapy and the Creative Use of Self in Counselling and Psychotherapy. I also deliver bespoke solution focussed training for corporations and public sector organisations relating to change management, conflict resolution, effective internal investigative procedures, leadership assessment and effective crisis communication and management. To find out more about training in 2020 please visit the dedicated web page for the CPD Adoption Course

 

Group Facilitation​

​​Group facilitation is especially beneficial for teams who have been through change or shared team trauma, such as a death of a colleague, a rift in the department or being subject to internal investigations. A well facilitated group experience that focusses on team strengths, together with the individual qualities each team member brings to the collective can help begin new ways of communicating and healing. Working this way enables positive progress in cases where it might be unhelpful or impossible to carry out full conflict resolution work.

 

Conflict Resolution & Mediation

​Conflict in any workplace is inevitable, especially in high performance and stress environments. Disagreement, if managed appropriately can often be a useful band powerful creative force. Disagreements can lead conflicts that erode team moral lowering motivation and can effect output to mediate. Once in a conflict situation people can become entrenched making communication and negotiation difficult or impossible without outside intervention. Negotiation is a highly sophisticated skill requiring open lines of communication. Therefore my role is to assist in enabling a new dialogue to open up in managed safe frame and reach a resolution.