Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy

What Is This Therapy?

DDP enhances parent’s ability to relate to their children using a specific approach called PACE (Playfulness, Acceptance, Empathy and Curiosity). PACE helps with day-to-day parenting and provides an excellent framework to those who may feel unconfident in addressing challenging conversations with young people. It can be used to manage dysregulation and to help promote attachment, bonding and understanding between adult and child.

Below you will find a brief video which features the founder of DDP (Dan Hughes) talking about what this approach attempts to illicit with the therapeutic environment.

Frequently asked questions

Who is this for?

This service supports children who are over four years old.

How is this therapy funded?

Parents/carers can fund this service in three ways:

1. Foster Carers: This service can be purchased directly by the affiliated local authority and/or fostering agency.

2. Adopters/Special Guardians/Kinship Carers: This group can use government funding to access therapy for their children. This is called the Adoption and Special Guardian Support Fund (ASGSF).

3. Birth parents: Direct payments can be made to purchase sessions. Prices can be obtained upon request.

How many therapy sessions do we need to attend?

If you are accessing this therapy using the ASGSF, we generally provide 23 therapy sessions. If this is intervention is funded privately or purchased on behalf of a local authority/fostering agency, then we can provide as many sessions as deemed appropriate by the commissioning body.

Where is the service available?

We operate from South-East London, in a place called Sidcup. We use a therapy room which is specifically designed for the work we undertake and for children's with sensory needs.

How can I get started?

The first step is to simply reach out to us via email of by phone. Once we have your details we can provide you with all the necessary information needed to either apply for funding via the ASGSF or the local authority.

Where, how long for and what frequency are the sessions?

This intervention can be completed online or in person. Sometimes, we take a hybrid approach, with some sessions being completed online and others physically from our therapy room.

Each therapy session is one hour long and we meet on a weekly basis.

Who is expected to attend the sessions?

This intervention is for you AND your child therefore, both of you will be asked to attend the sessions. Partners and spouses are also welcome to attend (but this would be dependant on the child).

What does a typical DDP intervention look like?

Every child, every parent and every family have unique needs which is observed and respected by our practitioners. Therefore, each DDP intervention will look slightly different. However, typically, we hold adult only sessions at the beginning of the intervention to gain a broad view of the family in question and the difficulties therein. We also use this time to discuss the approach we will be using and to role play scenarios, using PACE, in preparation for the child to join the conversation. We usually hold this portion of the intervention online, for parent's convenience . Following this, we then invite the child into the session and begin our discussions. At regular intervals, we then hold adult only feedback sessions so we can consider the information that has been brought into the room and to explore ways that we can shape our approach within therapy to enhance the child's sense of safety, whilst exploring tricky subjects.

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