Blogs and insights

Social ties are the cheapest medicine we have.

In this blog, Rich reflects on collective trauma and the challenge of addressing the social conditions that cause collective trauma, as well as treating the symptoms experienced by an individual.

Take down the fences: why we need to demilitarise our community life

In this blog we the discuss how our social and emotional ties have been eroded and the long term impact of being disconnected. When we invest in social connection instead, we reap the benefits for generations to come - Social ties are the cheapest medicine we have.

Collective trauma, disorganised attachment

Kate Cairns shares her reflections on parenting during profound social chaos and collective trauma.

A choice Issue

In this Blog, Barry Golten shares his thoughts on the difference of making bad choices and struggling to self regulate.

Gloucestershire-based organisation Knowledge Change Action Shortlisted for Prestigious LGC Awards in Inclusion and Diversity Category

Knowledge Change Action (KCA), a pioneering Gloucestershire-based organisation specialising in workforce transformation through attachment-aware and trauma-informed practice, is thrilled to announce its shortlisting for the Local Government Chronicle (LGC) Awards 2024 in the Inclusion and Diversity category. This nomination is in partnership with Medway Council for the Trauma-Informed Schools project, which involves 75 schools across the borough.

Becoming Centred.. This is the transformative knowledge which will, when applied to everyday life and experience, contribute to that gentle revolution

We are living through a period of collective trauma, where turbulence and chaos have recently dominated our lives. This collective trauma requires a collective response and our research is leading us to share the importance of taking a CENTRED approach towards self-healing communities.

Wishful reflections: Nurturing Parenthood and Practice - insights from Neuroscience

KCA's Director of Strategy and Partnerships Anisha Gadhia reflects on parenthood and practice

Relational Practice and Autism: the crisis inside schools is directly linked to human relationships

Vulnerable young people with impairments in their capacity to relate to others such as in the condition of autism, and their families represent a particular challenge to education professionals, schools and systems, since their social and behavioural patterns tend to place them at odds with school structures and staff expectations thus increasing the risk of exclusion. When we put this in the context of what is happening in schools today, Bingham and Sidorkin (2004) argue that that ‘the crisis inside schools is directly linked to human relationships’ while for Loewenthal (2009), our ‘very education system may be acting against human relations.’ The challenges are there and they are exacerbated by the state of today’s Britain. This is Why I chose to work with KCA because I believe that their positive influence, along with others, will change this around for the better! So if you have training with us, you are on the right side of change!

The Art and Science of Trauma - ‘Associate of Directors of Public Health put their cards on the ‘able’

Ann Berry, Trainer Consultant reflects on the role Directors of Public Health have in promoting trauma informed systems change.

Equal human beings - the role of professionals in a struggling system.

Our public services operate on paradigms that assume that the people being served are somehow different from the people providing the service. In this blog we explore if our social order has created an othering between the 'expert' and the 'service user'.

Overwhelmed parents struggling to support their overwhelmed children.

In this blog we consider the impact of parent mental health and the rapid increase in suspension from school post Covid.

Build relationships before you need them – the role of self-healing communities.

Richard explores how the trauma informed movement can move towards self healing communities, where local citizens actively support each other in the recovery process.

Healing through stories - transgenerational trauma of First Nation people

Catherine continues her journey through Australia. In this blog she learns how a crucial part of healing from trauma is having the opportunity to tell our stories. Through the traditions of story telling, song, yarning and art are enabling ingenious populations to survive and pass their wisdom on to those of us open enough to listen.

Youth Endowment Fund - Exploring the impact of Trauma Informed Practice on reducing youth violence.

We are currently working with the Youth Endowment Fund (YEF) in the co-design phase of an exciting project. In September 2022 YEF launched a new targeted project, co-funded with the Home Office, "Trauma-informed practice and its impact on youth violence", to find out what difference trauma-informed practice has on keeping children safe from violence. This project is one of 4 projects nationally, which will be robustly evaluated through randomised control trials so that we can begin to fill the evidence gap around trauma-informed practice.

Climate Crisis as a Collective Trauma

KCA's Director of Learning, Catherine Gordon is out in Australia for the World Community Development Conference. She is currently in Sydney where she has been confronted by the impact of the climate crisis. In this blog she considers if climate change is a form of collective trauma that is impacting on the city's anxiety.

‘All Our Futures’ revisited – moving beyond twenty five years of moral dissonance

The article explores moral dissonance, which perhaps describes a tension many educators are currently experiencing, where their passion for the role has been steadily eroded as the national curriculum has become an ever more rigid structure of narrow focus on targets, whilst child mental health issues have increased during what has been a challenging and disruptive period of collective trauma. More recently the role of the teacher has been reduced to producing data to demonstrate compliance, and an often joyless task of churning out of lesson plans. The result is very evident across our society now as school leaders and school staff are leaving the profession or taking strike action as a desperate expression of the harm they, and their children and young people, are suffering. The proposed article also discusses what happens when curriculums become more rigid and authoritarian, there is a loss of authenticity and critical integrity that follows, often leaving staff and leaders vulnerable to the entire culture of the school becoming more authoritarian, which results in many talented teachers simply walking away from a profession they once loved. The solution might lie in report published 24 years ago by Sir Ken Robinson, who proposed an immense, and deeply well-researched, statement of what would be needed for a twenty first century education system that would be fit for purpose.

Roadside assistance

What happen when you you spin into panic, especially when you have 101 things to do and places to be?
This blog examines Barry's experience when he broke down on the way to the Christmas party and how some simple actions from the RAC chap helped him to regulate himself.

Needs, motivations and trauma: rebuilding and sustaining community resilience

This blog looks at the impact collective trauma has on our motivation, and how we maintain our energy when adversity strikes. When trauma has had an impact on motivation we need the support of others within the community to recover our motivation, just as we need others who will co-regulate, guide and support us to recover from trauma.

Holding each other in a VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous) environment.

The last few years have seen change on top of change, and this week is no exception, as we see national political events unfold at pace. Let’s be honest, its unsettling to say the least, but when these events are layered on top of our collective experience of the Covid 19 pandemic, the combined stress pushes many of us to the edges of our resilience.

Creating kinder and more compassionate spaces where we can nourish each other

In this blog Richard explores how we move beyond transactional relationships to creating kinder and more compassion spaces where we can nourish each other.

“The world doesn't change one person at a time…” Collaborating to help the NSPCC become a Trauma Informed Organisation

Richard Holmes from KCA and Warren Larkin Associates explore the importance of collaborating for social change, through a joint project with the NSPCC.

Trauma Informed Leadership: inverting the structure chart!

In this blog, Rich explores trauma informed leadership and how it might help 'stuck' organisations.

Co-Owned and Co-Managed

Read how KCA is becoming a co-owned and co-managed organisation, that stays congruent to its values.

Community connection - for desire or for necessity?

In this blog Susan Blomley reflects on our personal 'needometer', that in built mechanism that helps us to know when we need to help people around us. We explore what moves us to action and we ask why we sometimes choose to do nothing.

Compassion. Reason. Value. Belong.

Origins Of Connections

Finding my tribe - the ups and downs of social referencing.

'What do we need when responding to Covid trauma? Knowledge, change and action...'

The power of the little things…for EVERYONE!

It’s time to ‘Help the Helpers’

It’s more than a change of ownership, it’s about social justice!

Joining Knowledge Change Action – “it’s OK to be as I am”

‘What is this life if, full of care / We have no time to stand and stare’

Unsentimental compassion: Our gift to our children, our need throughout life

In her KCA blog on 7 February, Sally Poskett commented that“… we are blessed with a workforce of people driven by authentic, unsentimental compassion who are willing, in the face of increased levels of toxic stress in our communities, to work doggedly to bring about transformation.”Since Sally wrote this, toxic stress has certainly not reduced in our communities, and I share her sense of awe and gratitude towards the people who continue to provide services to children and families facing all the challenges of life in the UK in the twenty-first century: people who day by day expose themselves to the ravages of toxic stress, knowing that their own capacity to absorb and transform this toxicity will protect vulnerable children and families from future harm and promote recovery from past harm.

2017 – The Year of the Dad?

A Day of Contrasts

When will the time be right to look at life chances?