Dr Sheila Redfern has worked as a Consultant Clinical Psychologist in NHS and Third Sector teams for over 30 years.  She headed up teams in Tier 3 CAMHS, establishing a service for adolescents who self-harm, a service for Under 5s and led a team specialising in family trauma at Anna Freud for the past 11 years before leaving to pursue her own work.  She is internationally recognised as an expert in mentalization based interventions for parents and foster carers and has published three books for parents on her own model of MBT parenting; Reflective Parenting. 

Sheila is a recognised expert in the field of child and adolescent psychology and has kept her focus on working directly with families throughout her career, in addition to her work training professionals nationally and internationally.  She is highly skilled in carrying out complex assessments of children and young people from a wide range of backgrounds and developmental profiles.  She has innovated interventions for foster carers which have contributed most recently to an evidence-base for carers (the Reflective Fostering Programme).  Sheila also holds a particular interest in working with families where members are neuro-divergent and where parents are seeking to understand their child better and have a closer connection. 

Sheila holds a PhD from Kings College, London, in addition to her clinical qualifications, and is passionate about evidence-based interventions.  She believes that no child or family is beyond help and, with the right fit of both therapist and type of intervention, every child and young person is capable of reaching their full potential. 

You can see Sheila’s publications here and more about her work and media engagements here