Cathy Betoin's I Matter Blog and Podcast

The I Matter Framework was drawn together as a response to my professional concern that something pretty serious was missing in child and family practice.   

There were so many different approaches that families, and front line practitioners, especially those with the most challenging and complex behaviour often found themselves feeling completely bewildered about what to do and why to help their child.  

The I Matter Framework offers a practical easy to share integration of...

What exactly are you going to focus on teaching in your school?
How are you going to ensure consistent implementation?
How are you going to demonstrate impact?

We have a package designed to introduce a different perspective on school priorities and we are putting it forward as there is an elephant in the room when it comes to schools practice and improving outcomes - infact maybe there are two or even three elephants. 

I drew the I Matter Framework together because after many years in...

We have just been writing a thank you letter to the John Horniman Quaker Children's Trust.  I feel quite excitied to see how things have been able to be progressed with their support.      Here is our letter      Here is their gorgeous website       These grants really do help us make a diff

'I stood at the school gate and saw it all. I saw children going through a personality change as they left our premises and it wasn't just a few families.  Something is off track in the adult-child relationship.  How do we start to address this?'  These were the recent reflections of a Headteacher of a school that has recently become one of our licensed I Matter schools embarking on our next culture change programme which aims to help staff and parents revisit...

Here is a very very exciting Ofsted Letter.    Hope school in Liverpool.   Oh fantastic!!   Finally it seems that sensitivity is starting to develop.   With team work we can make a difference

It is exciting to see that there are others who know that the diagnostic grip on mental health practice in adult and child services is damaging and needs resisting and that this resistance is now coming together via a range of pyschologsits and psychotherapists across the country.  There is the Cumbria Resliience Project and now we are having conferences run in the are of the British Psychological Society Power-Threat-Meaning Model.   I think the The Adult-Child...

Easter 2019.  It's been quite a week.  I have been developing the next steps for my NHS supported Digital Pioneer process from a location in the heart of the Scottish borders where my family have been helping out with the annual lambing adventures.   

There have been early morning starts, blustery and sunny hillsides, large amounts of food for the working team and lots of good conversations, In between times I have been researching digital options and wrestling with...

Dear Uma, 

The sun is streaming in and I have been sitting here thinking back to the time when I first got to know you.  
That was such a difficult time for you wasn't it and yet you had been actively looking for help for so long.   You had read and rread.   You had taken your child to so many appointments but as the years had gone past your child had got bigger and the meltdowns  had got more and more intense and  actually it was becoming...

Dear Stan, 

 It has undoutedly taken me longer to get to know youa as in this wider world of supporting the mental health and wellbeing of children and families there is still such an overdominance of women .  I know I don't need to tell YOU that!    Yet over the years of my practice I have seen that when it comes to the mental health and wellbeing of children men have an absolutely key role to play but they are too often undrerrepresented in the...

Dear Debbie, 

I know that your time is precious, and that the world you live in is busy. It’s busy for so many of us. So I want to start this letter first of all by saying thank you for agreeing to me to being here in your inbox and thank you for taking the time to read what I want to share and for allowing us to be connected, using the modern wonders of email. I have mixed feelings about technology and its place in our modern world, especially when it comes to our...