Dr Sheila Redfern
Organisation(s)
Overview
Dr Sheila Redfern PhD is a consultant clinical psychologist with over 25 years’ experience working with children, young people and families. She trained in 1994 at UCL and since this time has worked in NHS CAMHS services, managing a large clinical team, and is now Head of Family Trauma at the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families.
Sheila has innovated two major mentalization-based programmes for parents and carers; The Reflective Parenting Programme and the Reflective Fostering Programme. Both are aimed at increasing parent/carer child stability and enhancing connection and attachment. The Reflective Fostering Programme is now undergoing the largest ever RCT for foster carers to date and is a group psychoeducation programme.
Sheila is author of the book Reflective Parenting – a guide for parents and has written extensively in the field of parenting and fostering. As Head of the Family Trauma Clinical Programme, Sheila manages a multidisciplinary team working with children in and on the edge of care, post adoption, in care proceedings and parents with high levels of conflict. The aim of all this work is to promote and support the increased wellbeing of children and young people who have experienced developmental trauma.