T-Junction Homes
One of our homes is located in Birstall (Eastside) and is a learning difficulties home. The other homes are registered with OFSTED to accommodate children with emotional and behavioural difficulties. The home are located in Ibstock (Westside) and Measham (Northside) which offer accommodation primarily for adolescents who have suffered significant trauma or neglect in their earlier lives and are unlikely to manage the demands of foster family dynamics. T-Junction was set up in 2017 by Tim Clare, who was himself in care, and who has a powerful vision of what children need to feel good about themselves in a care home.
The teams that we have recruited for our two homes are defined by their…
Capacity to prioritise children’s safety
High level of emotional literacy and empathy
Enthusiasm to learn the theory that underpins their practice
Physical energy & resilience
Sense of humour and fun
Strong commitment to the children they care for
Excellent powers of communication
Good team skills
Our homes, highlight the fact that we expect our children and young people will be making choices and journeys during their time with us. They come to us often confused about their identity as good enough people, so lacking in self-confidence and a sense of direction. In our homes we seek to develop a relationship with each child that gives them a sense of being someone very special – and we help them to make the journey towards recovery, supporting them with decision-making and direction-taking. Our homes may look quite unremarkable from the outside – like other homes on the same road – but inside great things happen!
Our homes are comfortable and welcoming places with soft sofas and squishy cushions, clean kitchens and good smells of baking.
A safe haven and secure base for every child and young person who lives there.
A place with spaces to have fun – and also to have those quieter times.
Designed to give children and young people the privacy of their own bedroom, decorate in a way that appeals to them.
in areas where other families live, near parks and shops, with places to ride bikes and play games – and make friends
Psychotherapist
In our quest to ensure that all team members are continuously developing the insights and therapeutic toolkit to meet the needs of T-Junction’s children and young people, we recruited a psychotherapist. She spent the first part of her career in teaching – working at universities, colleges, secondary schools and a young offenders’ institution. After twenty-eight years in the profession she left her post as an academic head of department and school counsellor and set up her own counselling practice. After four years she was invited to become the Director of Therapy and Training at a large fostering organisation and she did this for ten years before resigning to do more freelance work. She is a senior associate with Kate Cairns Associates, an organisation that delivers training to schools and local authorities on attachment and trauma and does both training and writing for them, as well as her own freelance work.
She is a graduate of Durham and Edinburgh Universities and has an MSc from London University in Counselling with a particular focus on psychodynamic work with adolescents. Her professional accreditation is with BACP; she is thus MBACP and also UKRCP. As well as her counselling qualifications she is an experienced dyadic developmental psychotherapist, having trained with Dan Hughes in USA over a four-year period and she holds the DDP advanced diploma.
She is married with two birth children and many more foster children, having fostered over a twenty-seven year period. She has both foster grandchildren and birth grandchildren.