Charlene is a Senior Clinical Psychologist and Lead for Looked After Children services at CMCAFS. A large part of her role involves overseeing the LAC service, leading on contracts and generally supporting the staff team. This is something that she really enjoys.

Charlene always knew she wanted to work with young people and families and started doing this as soon as she qualified from Lancaster University. She now specialises in working with young people and adults who support them. In her role, she facilitates ongoing psychological consultation to staff teams and carers, undertakes multi-agency team formulation sessions, delivers training and provides clinical supervision to staff from a range of disciplines. She also supports with service development, including the development of service pathways and psychological informed models of care. When working directly with young people and families she completes comprehensive psychological assessments and provides therapeutic interventions.

Charlene utilises an integrated approach where she draws upon attachment and trauma informed frameworks to guide her work. She also likes to draw upon Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (DDP), Compassion Focussed Therapy (CFT) and Cognitive Analytical informed approached.  She has a special interest in developmental trauma, self-harming behaviours and Child Sexual Exploitation. Charlene has also undertaken training in DDP.