Therapeutic child care - are we clear what we are talking about?

The Hill View School provides therapeutic residential care, through its specialised therapeutic school, for primary aged children who have experienced early-life trauma. Despite children making significant progress whilst placed at the school the understanding of the term therapeutic child care is often misunderstood across both the school and the sector. This paper draws upon a case study of the Hill View School, including the experiences of children, their families, staff teams and senior managers who supported and interacted with them whilst they were placed at the school. Data analysis incorporates psychodynamic, reflective and phenomenological approaches to elucidate how misunderstandings associated with the term ‘therapeutic child care’ can, in part, be understood as an emotional defence against being in touch with children’s traumatic early life experiences.