Professionals Day speakers

Speakers

Rob Surtees
**Caring Families Aotearoa**

Rob is the Therapist for Caring Families Aotearoa, a division of Fostering Kids New Zealand, and Fostering Kids NZ. He trains caregivers in thereapeutic care and provides therapy to caregivers based on the principals of Dyadic Developmental Practice.

View full bio

Sally Moffatt
**Caring Families Aotearoa**

Sally is the Programme Manager for Caring Families Aotearoa, a division of Fostering Kids New Zealand. She holds a Diploma of Teaching and a Bachelor of Education (Early Childhood). She is trained in both level one and level two, Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy and Practice (DDP).

View full bio

Rob Surtees

Caring Families Aotearoa

Rob is the Therapist for Caring Families Aotearoa (a division of Fostering Kids New Zealand) and Fostering Kids NZ. He trains caregivers in thereapeutic care and provides therapy to caregivers based on the principals of Dyadic Developmental Practice. Rob is a member of ANZTAA, NZAFT and ITAA.

Rob's professional interests lay with Family Therapy and parenting children with attachment disorders. Rob describes himself as a relational therapist who often deals with issues involving anger and recovery from trauma. He uses his understanding of attachment and neuroscience, working with a protective and warm approach using Integrative Psychotherapy.

After Rob completed his degree in counselling he went on to complete study in Psychotherapy, Transactional Analysis. Rob has completed level one and two in Dyadic Developmental Practice and he is now engaging in his practicum for this model. Rob has been travelling the country training foster caregivers in Kim Golding's ‘’Foundations for Attachment’ and has just delivered ‘’Nurturing Attachments’’, a more in-depth level of understanding for foster caregivers.

Rob believes anyone who cares for, or makes decisions for children in foster care needs to have an understanding of the trauma these children have experienced. How this has impacted their neurological development. How forming an unsecure attachment often means these children’s brains are wired to live in a war zone, not to trust, not to form close relationship. Unless we have this understanding we often fail to heal these children and they experience placement after placement.

Sally Moffatt

Caring Families Aotearoa

Sally Moffatt is the Programme Manager for Caring Families Aotearoa, a division of Fostering Kids New Zealand. She holds a Diploma of Teaching and a Bachelor of Education (Early Childhood). She is trained in both level one and level two, Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy and Practice (DDP).

Prior to joining Fostering Kids New Zealand, Sally was Education Director at Footsteps Education for thirteen years implementing an early childhood programme supporting caregivers in their homes with young children in the care and protection system.

Sally is a skilled facilitator, delivering the Foundations for Attachment programme to caregivers across Aotearoa. Sally and her cofacilitator, Rob have recently delivered the more advanced Nurturing Attachments programme over nine weeks to a group of foster caregivers in Christchurch.

Both programmes, based on DDP and PACE have been adapted to meet the needs of professionals working with children and young people in the care and protection system. Sally and Rob have tested and delivered to both Social Workers and to Mentors in Schools.

Sally and Rob were invited by Oranga Tamariki to deliver to different teams supporting three high and complex needs children. The purpose of this training was to provide knowledge to the teams around developmental trauma, working as a team, and understanding how to provide a more therapeutic healing environment.

Sally has an in-depth knowledge of developmental trauma, attachment, therapeutic parenting and the impact of developmental trauma on the developing brain. She has a passion to change the way we parent children and young people who have experienced maltreatment so that their trajectory in life changes for the better. She believes that we need to change what we are doing, because how we have been parenting to date has not worked. Just look at our appalling child statistics.