Your Trusted Friends in Adoption, Fostering and Special Guardianship Training
Here at Roots & Wings, we believe in empowering families through knowledge and support.
As an independent training and consultancy company, we specialize in high-quality training for adoption,
fostering, and special guardianship. Our commitment is to provide courses that are informative, engaging,
and tailored to meet the unique needs of every participant.
All our trainers are highly qualified and experienced in their field of work and have many years of involvement
with families of care experienced children.
We are a unique training provider as all our trainers are adoptive parents and have lived experience as well as
professional expertise in a variety of fields including education, the charity sector and therapeutic services.
We all work to provide the best therapeutic services that we can. We are a small but mighty team and care
deeply about families and children we support.
We want our children to grow and develop to their full potential, and we aim to support parents and professionals
to be in the best possible place to be able to walk alongside the children in their care as they grow and develop.
We believe that a child’s behaviour is their communication. As such, traditional parenting often does not work for
our children. We promote and work to a model of Therapeutic Parenting, which emphasizes understanding our child’s
emotional needs and providing a safe environment. We prioritize empathy, connection and consistency, whilst also
supporting our children to rewrite their narratives, build healthy relationships and thrive, despite their early trauma.
We'd love to connect with you. Please do get in contact - We will be happy to talk through any questions any queries you may have.
Our Core Trainers
Rachel Gillett is a parent to 2 adult children. She has experience and
knowledge of adoption both as a single parent adopter, and transracial
adoption, and has lived experience of both.
Professionally, Rachel was an early years teacher before becoming a Sure Start Manager. She has extensive groupwork experience facilitating parenting groups, parent and children's group, and direct work with children.
Rachel is a full-time trainer and consultant and works in a participatory way. She has delivered and evaluated over 400 courses, training over 6,000 people. Currently, most of her work is with parents (mainly foster and adoptive parents) as well as practitioners.
Rachel is a Therapeutic Life Story Worker and a Non-Violent Resistance
practitioner, working with both families and groups. She has an MA in Therapeutic Fostering and Adoption.
Nicola Evans is a speaker, trainer and published author in the field of
developmental trauma. As an adoptive parent to three children Nicola has
personal experience of living with the impact of early trauma. She started her own training company 15+ years ago – Brave Heart Education, in response to the growing need of educators to understand the challenges for vulnerable children within the educational system.
Nicola has since moved into the field of training and supporting for adoption, fostering, special guardianship and those living with trauma. She is a
therapeutic life story worker and works in adoption support for a local adoption agency, along with her freelance work.
To find out more about Brave Heart Education go to - www.bravehearteducation.co.uk
We also work with associates.
Currently these are:
Mary Baldock is a working Mum to a 22-year-adopted son, who became part of the family at 9 months old. My son has a diagnosis of developmental trauma and Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) and I have lived
experience of child to parent violence.
My experience includes the Neuro-Physiological Psychotherapy (NPP) Framework for working with traumatised children, as well as Non – violent
resistance (NVR) and Great Behaviour Breakdown work.
After many years in the advice sector supporting vulnerable adults, since 2015 I have been supporting families with complex issues in the world of Adoption and SEND.
Graham Kennedy has been a therapist and trainer for 30 years, specialising in working with the impact of disrupted attachment and developmental trauma.
Graham has a particular interest in working with adopted children and their families, and has worked as a parent consultant and trainer for a number of organisations Graham has run support groups, trainings and webinars for adoptive parents, providing support and information on a range of subjects including Child to Parent Violence (CPV), school related issues, sensory integration, anxiety and trauma-informed therapeutic parenting.
Graham also provides assessments and therapeutic support to young people with a history of sexually harmful behaviour. He also has experience in working with victims of sexual violence and assault.
