Our approach to caring for children and young people combines education and care, emphasising that bringing up children is the shared responsibility of parents/carers and society.

The Inspire Pedagogy applies a range of theoretical approaches to adequately respond to and address the complex needs, emotions and behaviours of children and young people in our care, incorporating attachment theory, trauma-informed practice and psychotherapeutic behaviour management.

This theoretical and practical framework is informed by Child and Parent Relationship Therapy (CPRT), Social Pedagogy, the recommendations of The Promise (Independent Care Review Scotland), and The Solihull Approach, which is at the cornerstone of our model. 

Based on the work of Child Psychologist and Child Psychotherapist, Dr Hazel Douglas MBE, the Solihull Approach was developed in the late 1990s and is now used in most areas of the UK and many projects across the world. The diversity of professionals now using the approach in their work ranges from midwives, health visitors, family workers, foster carers, social workers and teachers to firefighters and prison officers. They do so across many different settings including family homes, residential homes, hospitals, clinics, companies, schools and prisons. 

The Solihull Approach is not a framework for practice or an intervention to be implemented, but an underpinning approach for all aspects of our work with children and young people. The three key components of the Solihull Approach are:

  • Containment
    Receiving and understanding the emotional communication of another without being overwhelmed by it and communicating this back to the other person. This process can restore the ability to think in the other person.

  • Reciprocity

    The sophisticated interaction between a child and an adult where both are involved in the initiation, regulation and termination of the interaction. Reciprocity can also be used to describe the interaction within all relationships. 

  • Behaviour Management

    Part of the ordinary process of normal development whereby parents (or carers) teach their child self-control, enabling the child to participate in society. Reasonable boundaries are placed on the child’s behaviour, and the child is encouraged with attention and other rewards. Gradually, they become able to internalise both the restraints and the satisfactions and this facilitates wider learning and development.

Applying each of these components in harmony is the basis of building trusting and therapeutic relationships with our children and young people.

On this foundation we apply therapeutic relationship development methods in a trauma-informed service model, from top-to-bottom of our organisation. This safeguards the physical and psychological wellbeing of those in our care and our staff, and recognises that giving people choice and voice can address power imbalances and create better relationships. 

All Inspire staff are comprehensively trained in these approaches during their core training programme.