A New Perspective for the Role of the Psychologist in Residential Care – New Therapeutic Approaches in Caring for Children and Teens in Residential Care

Working as part of a multi-professional therapeutic team at a children and teen village for who had to leave their homes for reasons concerning their welfare is a challenging feat.

I would like to address this topic showing our unique way of constructing our therapeutic teams at Talpiot specifying the role of the psychologist.

In order to find our way in this tricky path we work as psychologists in our village based on the following principals:

• We are partners with the social worker
• Watch the transference, notice the split
• Be a part of the team – but you never stop being their psychologist
• Voice out the voice that`s not being heard
• Validate feelings- confront issues

In our day to day life at work we interact with our team on a few levels:

• We partner with the social workers on all therapeutic issues
• We co-moderate group therapy for the children with the social worker
• We co-moderate the team supervision meeting with the social worker
• We are important voices through whatapp groups with the team as life goes on 24/7

It is important to try and find new approaches for psychologists to be able to be a part of the therapeutic teams – connecting with the village without losing our professional vantage point.