Who We Are

Alison Bushell

Director / Consultant

Alison is the founder and director of CFS and has been a social worker since 1990.

She now practices as an Independent Social Worker and Expert Witness in private law matters in the family courts and offers consultation on public law matters cases when needed.
She is frequently recommended to offer expert assessments and intervention in complex and high conflict cases, some of which are now in the High Court.

Having had over 20 years of Local Authority social work experience, she is able to offer advice on working with most client groups, although her expertise is mainly in the field of Child Protection.

She has also been a Children’s Guardian - public and private law - for 10 of her years in social work.

Alison is a trained counsellor and has appreciable experience of mediation and conciliation work.
She has skills in working with contact resistance and has successfully helped several estranged parents reunite with their child/ren including where unavoidable, effecting and moreover managing a transfer of residence for those children to ensure they are able to have a relationship with both parents.

She is a trustee of the national charity Families Need Fathers. ( www.fnf.org.uk ) Alison however works to an ethos of shared parenting, believing that children need both parents in their lives in order to flourish.

She is a member of the international organisation Leading Women for Shared Parenting. ( http://lw4sp.org )
Whilst she has developed a specialism in assessing cases of alienation and hostile parenting, her focus is nonetheless on repairing and working therapeutically to resolve issues arising from strained parent child relationships.

This therapeutic work involves exploring the roots of the problem by assessment of the adults’ attachment relationships and also undertaking direct work with children which include art and play therapy techniques built up over many years of working with families.

Her work to repair broken family relationships and reunite children with estranged parents is now well known and she is frequently recommended to work with long running and entrenched cases.

Alison is experienced in dealing with diversity. She has advised parents in same sex relationships and is also able to assist in culturally complex matters in an informed and skilled way. She is also vigilant in challenging gender bias within the family court system.

Her testimonials from both colleagues and clients attest to the respect she has built up in the Courts and to her good interpersonal skills. She has an energetic and solutions-focussed approach to the challenges of family law and consistently achieves good results for her clients.

She is now based in Norwich but is able to cover most of the South and South East and has been known to cover cases further afield including international matters.

About me

ISW Team

Sophie Latham

Independent Social Worker

Sophie is a qualified Social Worker who has extensive experience working with children and families in private law proceedings.

Sophie worked for Cafcass for 10 years and in this time gained invaluable experience and skills assisting families post separation.

Sophie has consistently received positive feedback for her direct work with children skills and her ability to assess their expressed wishes and feelings in the context of their experiences.

Sophie produces concise and analytical reports and has extensive experience of giving evidence in court. She has experience in cases featuring parental alienation, including transfer of residence cases, and also specialises in removal from jurisdiction cases.

Sophie is based in the south east but can cover all areas of the U.K. She is able to assist with transfer of residence cases, undertake Section 7 reports and parenting assessments and work with parents post separation on a consultancy basis.

About me

Sarah Noel

Independent Social Worker

Sarah is an experienced social worker with many years of working with children and families.

She qualified in 2009 with a MSc in Social Work.

She has worked for local authorities in various teams such as Child Protection, Court Team, MASH and the Fostering Team.

During her years of working with the Local Authority she has completed numerous assessments as an assessing Social Worker and ISW, completing S.7 reports, Form F, Parenting assessments, viability assessments and Special Guardianship assessments.

She has assessed complex cases and facilitated Family Group Conferences.

Sarah specialises in direct work with children and families. Sarah has used a range of approaches to support her work, such as story stems, life story work, adult/child attachment interview and CBT approaches.

Sarah has also worked in a mother and ; baby unit where she supported parents and delivered workshops and one to one sessions based on the PAMS assessment model.

She worked through an extensive list of skills and parenting worksheets for parents in assessing their knowledge and capabilities covering all aspects of parenting, budgeting and safety in and out the home. She has also supervised foster carers who have had mother and baby placements, advising on contact arrangements, log recordings and statutory visits.

Sarah’s most current experience has been working in the fostering team with foster carers and looked after children providing a high level of support in a therapeutic agency. She has completed comprehensive risk assessments, matching forms, attended panel, and her focus with the children is providing direct work and coaching.

She is currently completing her CPCAB counselling course and offers counselling skills as part of her work with children and families.

Sarah is passionate about achieving the best outcomes for children and families, she has extensive skills in a wide range of areas and works therapeutically with families.

Shaping Lives Today

About me

Donia Goering

Independent Social Worker

Donia is an experienced social worker qualifying in 2004

Donia has worked in a variety of social work settings ranging from child protection, care proceedings, fostering, adoption and has undertaken independent assessments. Donia works in London and the Home Counties

During the time she has practiced, Donia has completed a variety of public and private law assessments, she has also presented cases to a variety of panels and has given evidence in court.

Doni's career began working in a women's refuge and children homes. This experience has equipped her with the skills to work with children and their parents. Donia is experienced in empowering and motivating families to enable them to make positive changes in their lives.

Donia has held several positions as a senior social worker and has some experience of management, she has supported family support workers and newly qualified social workers.

Donia is trained in Motivational Interviewing techniques, which enable professionals to obtain vital information from familes while championing there positive achievements.

Donia is a strong believer in helping parents understanding the impact of their behaviour upon their children.

About me

Senior FSW

Wolsey Bonnick Jnr.

Deputy Director & Senior FSW

Junior has 20 years experience as a Youth Worker, which has given him a passion to help young people fulfill their potential.

He has worked for the Youth Offending Service for over 11 years in various roles which have included mentoring, one to one programs, group work and Appropriate Adult His role required him to interact with parents and various agencies e.g. care homes, police social workers etc., to bring about the best outcomes for young people.

He recently undertook a course of study at The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust on a diploma course, which has given him a Post Graduate Diploma in ‘The Emotional Care of Babies, Children, Young People and Families’.

The course is designed for practitioners who work with children. The ethos of the Tavistock is to learn through observation; a variety of psychoanalytical concepts are also studied related to behavioural patterns. This has given Junior a solid theoretical backdrop to and context for the work with families he undertakes in his day to day work.

Junior is about to join CFS as a full time contractor. He brings a wealth of experience skills and common sense to the work and is a trusted mentor for the newer members of staff as well as a reliable deputy for Alison.

He has an extremely high success rate when working with families to achieve change and his no – nonsense ‘straight talking’ yet humorous manner seems to serve to make parents and children alike very comfortable and able to trust that they are in a safe space working with him.

About me

Ashley Pledger

Senior FSW

Ashley works as a family support worker, as well as having "in Court" experience as a McKenzie Friend..She has a friendly and approachable and reassuring manner with families and is very popular with children.

Ashley did an undergraduate degree course in Psychology with Criminology, during which she developed a particular interest in Attachment Theory, which is highly relevant when working closely with families. She understands the importance of a child having a relationship with both parents whenever that is possible, and is motivated to achieve this outcome.

Her skills and her successes in family work are attested to by several very complementary ‘thankyou’ emails from parents and lawyers alike to the director.

About me

Amanda McPherson

Senior FSW

Amanda has worked within Family Justice for around 20 years, having worked on the advice line for Reunite Child Abduction Centre, later as a clerk to a Family Lawyer and more recently, since 2012, as a full time McKenzie Friend, running a support organisation called Familia.

Within the last five years Amanda has had a lot of experience with CFS of working directly with families, supervising and supporting parents and children as directed by Court.

Amanda is a compassionate and caring professional who always puts children at the heart of her work. She is commended for her clear reports and her honest and open manner when needing to challenge parents.

About me

FSW Team

Clarissa Stevens

Family Support Worker

Clarissa is a family support worker and youth worker.

She facilitates events, training and workshops along with consultations supporting positive change. She has done mentoring with parents in Public Law matters to help empower them to see their true worth and specifically to help them navigate through a system which can be confusing for them. She feels it is important to break down the jargon and advocates strongly for them.

Within the private law arena for CFS she is a resilient and diligent contact supervisor who is able to challenge parents when they are not able to put their children’s needs before their own and she has worked with some complex cases at High Court Level. She was once called unexpectedly to give evidence in just such a case and we share a wry smile to this day at the fact that she was cross examined whilst wearing a track suit in the Royal Courts of Justice. She was in fact commended in the subsequent judgement for the clarity of her evidence as well as of her reports, despite her attitude.

About me

Charles de Richelieu

Family Support Worker

Charles has a great deal of empathy and wide field of understanding. His life has taken him from the urban sprawl to the Amazonian jungle and everywhere in between.

Along the way he has acquired skills and knowledge which affords him the ability to transfer seamlessly between environments wherever and however they are presented.

Within the last five years his focus has been on social care and child welfare.

He has been with CFS for all this time. He has undertaken several training courses to support his practice and enjoys learning about the area of work in which he now finds himself. He was recently described by a client as “100% reliable, and ‘a real gentleman’

His mature age, reliability and relaxed manner in any situation has proved invaluable and earned him a good reputation with clients and lawyers alike.

About me

Mike Flinn

Therapist and Counsellor

Mike is an experienced counsellor who trained in Scotland and England to work with Families, adults and children.

He has been a counsellor for 20 years, initially with Couple Counselling Scotland (now Relationships Scotland) before moving to Shropshire to work for Relate in 2006.

He became self employed in 2015 after the local Relate ceased trading.

He works in secondary schools, in Shropshire and for the local authority Social Services.

He also works to reunite children with estranged parents and supports parents to re start co- parenting, as well as working with couples, adults and children who have personal issues (eg anger management, stress and anxiety) or issues with their relationships (eg communication, boundaries, family systems).

He specialises in working with families who are separating or divorcing, and is experienced in the issues this can bring. He has co -written a course for separating parents, which looks at the issues from the child’s perspective, and how the parents can co parent after separation.

Mike is a member of Resolution UK, because of his focus on working for the best outcomes for families and children. He is an accredited member of BACP, and a member the Institute of Chartered Foresters, because he still loves forestry. and it’s a hard earned qualification that he’s not letting go of!

Mike also enjoys golf and the countryside, which is sometimes a symbiotic relationship, sometimes not...

About me

Dr Alan Blotcky PhD

Writer and Consultant

Alan Blotcky PhD is a clinical and forensic psychologist in Birmingham, Alabama.

Dr Blotcky is an expert on false allegations of abuse, parental alienation, and best custody arrangements. He can provide professional supervision and clinical advice to CFS.

He has more than 15 published articles in the areas. He has been involved in hundreds of cases and has testifed in many of them.

ARTICLES
https://familylawyermagazine.com/articles/winning-parental-alienation-cases/

About me

Captain

Therapy Dog

Captain is a 13 year old Jack Russell terrier.

When he lived with Alison in London and was much younger he received some training to be a therapy dog and this means he is judged to be the correct temperament to work with children, elderly people etc.

He is gentle and playful and both children and their parents seem to love him. He is useful when there are young children who find it difficult to express complex feelings and his rather large ‘listening ears’ have been appreciated by many young clients at times when speaking to an adult is just too difficult…
Captain has been available to assist at many an ‘icebreaker’ meeting and works well with our family support worker colleagues to make contact sessions more fun.

He doesn’t charge for his services but appreciates treats.

A 12 year old child who had to move home to live with their other parent very suddenly last year reflected to Alison "When I was really really upset yesterday and threw things, Captain was really calm, I looked at him and felt a bit better, he’s quite a special dog".

About me

Vacancies

Captain is at 13 looking at the prospect of retirement quite fondly especially as he has, during the pandemic, got very used to being able to enjoy much of his day in bed. He would ideally like a younger replacement who he can brief on the challenging yet rewarding role he has enjoyed and he will happily pass on his ‘therapy dog’ collar and lead to a suitable candidate.

Please apply via the enquiries email address if you know of a dog who could follow in Captain’s rather impressive pawsteps.

Interested in joining our team?

Why Choose Us:

Therapeutic social work and systemic therapy with families.

CFS has developed a specialism in cases where there is some evidence of hostile parenting and difficulties with contact and post separation care arrangements. Alison in particular has developed casework expertise in this area over many years having worked as a Guardian and now as an ISW almost exclusively with proceedings involving allegations of parental alienation and associated harm.

She has successfully reunited many children with an estranged parent and where this hasn’t been possible has successfully managed several changes of residence for the children concerned.

All our ISWs however are familiar with and some have specific training in this area of family law and understand the very specific needs of the children involved.

We are able to recognise the signs of children being caught between their parents and also to identify when a parent is actively preventing a child from enjoying a relationship with the other parent following separation.

We have been commended by judges, lawyers and psychologists for our sensitive yet robust approach to this particular family dysfunction and moreover for the good outcomes we achieve.

Reunification Work

We are able to work intensively on a reunification plan for children who have been separated from a parent and where the attachment has been disrupted. Whilst many practitioners work on a daytime only basis we believe that to normalise contact and re-establish a fragmented attachment extended contact is sometime necessary. We utlise the knowledge and expertise, where necessary, of our in house therapists, not all of whom feature on our website and involve the excellent network of advisors and specialists in whom we trust who are on hand to advise on specific issues.

(more details under ‘what we do’ and also available on request)

REDUCING DELAY

Delay is known to be unhelpful in family cases and is inimical to the best interests of children within proceedings. The stress of court proceedings for all concerned is protracted when there is delay due to reports being ordered that can't start or when there is a wait to allocate an assessor. Here at CFS we are responsive and there is always someone able to begin work within a matter of two or three weeks, sometimes sooner. This also means that you wont usually need to wait to spend time with your children as we can offer almost immediate supervision of contact.

DIRECT AND THERAPEUTIC WORK

We are all skilled in direct work and trained in being able to engage with children of all ages to ascertain their wishes and feelings.

With the many years of experience we all have within family work we have a wealth of tools and resources in order to help put the more nervous child at ease including those with complex special needs.

We sometimes utilise the calming and reassuring presence of Captain the therapy dog who works well with children and parents alike.

Children can exhibit differing and complex reactions to their parents having separated, and we are able to assist and guide parents and carers in how best to manage this unsettling time for them. Between us we have many qualifications and much experience in systemic practice with families.

INTERNATIONAL CASES

We have experience of managing international cases and have experience of working with interpreters and managing the demands of cultural and religious issues.

We can cover cases not in our immediate locality and have worked all over the UK as well as abroad.

We can assist with Leave to Remove applications and have considerable experience in the assessment of such cases.

PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS - ISW TEAM

Our ISWs are all SWE registered, and are also members of NAGALRO, which means they have full professional indemnity insurance.

Some of the ISWs receive professional supervision and we also practice peer supervision as a team.

FSW TEAM

We ensure that we value what the FSW team bring to the company in terms of their knowledge and skill input and their invaluable work with families by proving full professional indemnity insurance and public liability insurance cover for them.

All FSW staff have safeguarding training and are recruited and currently supervised by the Director. All reports are quality assured before being sent out.

REFLECTIVE AND RESPONSIVE PRACTICE

We are committed to developing our professional practice in line with emerging research and case law and keep abreast of new developments in these areas.

We are keen to practice reflectively and to this end we collaborate with each other and frequently co-work so as to learn from each other and benefit from the widest possible skill base.

OUR ETHOS

DIVERSITY STATEMENT

We actively challenge all forms of discrimination and we value diversity.

We take anti discriminatory social work practice into all our areas of expertise.

We believe that children have the right to a relationship with both parents and that shared parenting is likely to best meet the needs of children whose parents have separated.

SHARED PARENTING

We believe that children have the right to a relationship with both parents and that research consistently shows that shared parenting is likely to best meet the needs of children whose parents have separated.

GENDER DISCRIMINATION

We are particularly aware as an agency of the unfortunate bias in some areas of the system where fathers appear sometimes to be seen, against all research evidence, as less important in their children’s lives.

This extends to the approach recently taken by many pressure groups who seek to claim that fathers seeking to retain a place in their children’s lives post separation are in fact abusing the mothers by this and moreover that they are assisted in this by the Family Court, something our practice experience as a team simply doesn’t evidence.

We are particularly alive to the issue of male victims of domestic violence and the lack of recognition and support of this cohort of our client base.

We are informed by the most reliable and up to date information and statistics on this issue, one that affects many families with whom we work and are proactive in our assessments and our reports in challenging any assumptions and bias so as to report fairly and accurately.

COLLABORATIVE WORKING

We believe that conciliation and a collaborative approach can work even in the most entrenched situations if we gain the trust of the family involved. Fortunately we have developed a base of colleagues and lawyers who share our vision and who are able to refer to us and vice versa, some of these valued colleagues can be found in the ‘useful info and affiliations’ page.

Who We Are

Alison Bushell

Director / Consultant

ISW Team

Sophie Latham

Independent Social Worker

Sarah Noel

Independent Social Worker

Donia Goering

Independent Social Worker

Senior FSW

Wolsey Bonnick Jnr.

Deputy Director & Senior FSW

Ashley Pledger

Senior FSW

Amanda McPherson

Senior FSW

FSW Team

Clarissa Stevens

Family Support Worker

Charles de Richelieu

Family Support Worker

Mike Flinn

Therapist and Counsellor

Dr Alan Blotcky PhD

Writer and Consultant

Captain

Therapy Dog

Vacancies

Why Choose Us:

Therapeutic social work and systemic therapy with families.

Reunification Work

REDUCING DELAY

DIRECT AND THERAPEUTIC WORK

INTERNATIONAL CASES

PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS - ISW TEAM

FSW TEAM

REFLECTIVE AND RESPONSIVE PRACTICE

OUR ETHOS

DIVERSITY STATEMENT

SHARED PARENTING

GENDER DISCRIMINATION

COLLABORATIVE WORKING

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