Foster Care Curriculum - Triple-A Model of Therapeutic Care

12/08/2025

How do we effectively support children who've experienced trauma when conventional behaviour management approaches fail them? This powerful training session delivers a transformative framework for understanding what's really happening beneath challenging behaviours.

At the heart of this approach are three critical questions: What's truly driving a child's behaviour? How can we respond therapeutically to those underlying needs? And how will we measure our success? Through the innovative AAA model—examining Attachment representations, Arousal levels, and Accessibility to needs provision—we explore the internal world of traumatised children.

Children who've experienced relational trauma develop distorted beliefs about themselves ("I'm unlovable"), others ("Adults are unreliable"), and their world ("It's unsafe"). Their nervous systems often operate in overdrive, making them anxiety-prone and reactive. Most significantly, they've learned that getting needs met requires extraordinary effort—explaining the demanding behaviours that frustrate so many caregivers.

Traditional behaviour management strategies like ignoring unwanted behaviours, reward systems, and punishments simply don't work with these children. They weren't raised in environments where reinforcement was consistent, making these approaches ineffective at best and harmful at worst.

The AURA approach offers a powerful alternative: being Accessible to reassure children we're available, responding with Understanding through our words and actions, being proactively Responsive to needs before children must demand them, and maintaining Attunement—that crucial emotional connection that communicates worth and care.

For foster carers, kinship carers, residential workers, teachers, and other professionals supporting children recovering from tough starts, this training provides practical, compassionate strategies that address the real reasons behind behaviours of concern. By shifting our focus from managing behaviours to healing relationships, we create the conditions for genuine growth and recovery.

https://colbypearce4.wordpress.com/2025/08/12/aura-over-authority-rethinking-our-response-to-challenging-behaviours-2/

When it comes to managing challenging behaviours in children who have experienced trauma, conventional approaches often fall short. Colby Pearce, a renowned expert in child trauma and development, …

08/01/2025

Behaviour management is tricky when the child or young person is recovering from abuse and neglect.

In circumstances where a response to the behaviour is necessary, I recommend following this one simple rule.

Been told that you must respond to the unmet need for the behaviour?👉🏽Do you want to know more about therapeutic parenting? Click here: https://www.youtub...

06/01/2025

Here is a link to an interview I did a little while ago with a national organisation for child and adolescent mental health. The video quality is fairly low due to me cropping out the interviewer, at their request. Hope it is useful. Colby

This video is drawn from a recent interview Colby gave to a large non-government organisation in Australia, who specialise in matters affecting child and ado...

06/10/2024

Praising deeply hurt and troubled children and young people is fraught and, often times, ineffective in achieving our intent of building self-worth, adequacy, and competency. In this short video I share a couple of ways I use to achieve these goals.

https://youtu.be/s6HOElVWDSk

Want to know more about how to express express praise towards deeply hurt children?👉🏽Do you want to know more about therapeutic parenting? Click here: htt...

05/10/2024

In this video I share my perspective on how to express unconditional positive regard in our work with, and care of, deeply hurt and troubled children and young people.

https://youtu.be/CZsWbN4P5Bo

30/09/2024

When managing behaviours of concern among deeply hurt and troubled young people, remember this simple rule:

Whatever the intervention you feel you have to make, you will need to turn your mind to the opposite action in order to avoid reinforcing to the young person that they are inadequate, unworthy, undeserving, and/or unlovable (and that adults are mean, nasty, uncaring).

So, if you take something away, give something in return. If you admonish, praise for something else. If you restrict access to something, be generous in other ways.

03/09/2024

Preamble Taking on the care of a young person whose parents were finding life hard, such that their care was inadequate, presents some common challenges for the adults responsible for their contemp…

02/09/2024

Bella talks about how her carers can be in charge without feeling unsafe - video series.

I developed this video series to accompany training I am providing to statutory kinship carers of Australian Aboriginal children, in support of the work of Incompro Aboriginal Association Inc and UnitingCare Wesley Bowden (UCWB), through their Martinthi program. The videos accompany training provided in support of trauma-informed, compassionate, culturally safe, and effective care being provided to children and young people who cannot safely be cared for by their birth parents. It is anticipated to also be of use to other foster carers, kinship carers, residential child carers, and other adult stakeholders in the lives of such children.

This is a compilation of videos in which Bella, a child in out-of-home care, explains how her current caregivers can take charge without making her feel unsa...

27/08/2024

Available research, and anecdotal experience, suggests that children and young people who foster play a critical role in the success, or otherwise, of an out-of-home care placement. Children and and young people who foster are the birth children of foster carers. They may be similarly aged as the child who is fostered and share parental care with the fostered child. Through the role they play supporting their parents and the fostered child, children and young people who foster are thought to benefit in the development of their character via the role.

Children who foster may be adults with their own children who share their grandparents with the fostered child. As adults, they may also support their parents in the fostering role.

Children and young people who foster have also been referred to as “forgotten children”, in consideration of their experience. Children and young people who foster can feel as though their own needs are less pressing, or even less important than those of the fostered child. Wellbeing is threatened and relationships are strained, leading to a decision to end the placement for the fostered child in many instances.

The end of the placement has potential negative impacts for children and young people who foster. Among dependent children of the foster carers, the end of the placement may result in insecurity about the continuity of love and care. Teenage and adult children may experience shame and guilt about the placement ending.

The foster parents, themselves, are likely to be impacted by the placement not working out. Feelings of failure may compromise their caregiving capacity and wellbeing, at least for a time.

For the sake of children and young people who are in-need of out-of-home care, child welfare authorities and fostering agencies need to recognise the role children and young people who foster have to play in placement outcomes, and ensure that they feel important and supported too.

Available research, and anecdotal experience, suggests that children and young people who foster play a critical role in the success, or otherwise, of an out...

27/08/2024

This animated video is drawn from one of my most popular pieces of writing, ever. It tells the story of how a sensitive child thinks, feels, and experiences the world. I anticipate that it will be of most interest to sensitive children and adults who interact with them in caregiving and professional roles.

This animated video drawn from one of my most popular pieces of writing on my blog site. It reflects the experiences of sensitive children I have interacted ...

22/08/2024

This video marks my first step to creating animated videos for children and young people, to help them understand why they engage in behaviours that concern adults, and how to respond therapeutically to them. I hope that it will be especially helpful for children and young people recovering from a tough start to life, and adults who interact with them in caregiving roles.

Let me know what you think! Also, like my video and subscribe to my channel to make sure you never miss an upload!

This video marks the first step to creating animated videos for children and young people, to help them understand why they engage in behaviours that concern...

05/08/2024

This video makes the point that, though the attachment relationship a child has with their mum and dad are important, they are not the only relationships that contribute to a child's overall attachment style and attachment security. It really does take a village to raise a child. Having said that, there are consequences for excluding mum and dad from the village too.