In this episode, we shine a spotlight on the Pears Family School, a pioneering Alternative Provision school in the UK that is redefining how we support children with complex emotional, behavioral, and mental health needs. Facing a national crisis in child mental health and a lack of joined-up services, the Pears Family School bridges the gap between education and mental health through a unique, systemic, and family-focused approach.

We are joined by Laura Lower and Maya Bell Kohli as we discover how the school’s founders, both experienced teachers and systemic family therapists, created a model that integrates therapeutic and educational practices. We’ll explore the origins of their innovative multi-family classroom, the five bridging themes that guide every aspect of school life—Active Warmth, Respectful Curiosity, Hopeful Motivation, Supportive Challenge, and Engendered Trust—and the theoretical foundations that underpin their work, from Attachment Theory to Mentalization.

Hear how all staff, not just therapists, are trained in mental health principles, enabling them to make informed interventions throughout the school day. Learn about the school’s commitment to involving parents and carers in every step, from classroom activities to group discussions, building trust and solidarity among families who have often felt excluded or blamed.

Maya and Laura share real stories of transformation, discuss the challenges of working with children at risk of exclusion, and examine how the Pears Family School helps students recover, regain confidence, and transition successfully back to mainstream education. Whether you’re an educator, mental health professional, or advocate for vulnerable children, this episode offers practical insights and inspiration for anyone interested in systemic change and holistic support for families.

Laura is a family and systemic psychotherapist and supervisor with extensive experience in therapeutic education and safeguarding. For the past six years, she has been a senior leader at The Pears Family School, a specialist therapeutic alternative provision, where she works as Head of Therapy and Safeguarding Lead. Before joining the school, Laura worked in CAMHS as a Senior Mental Health Practitioner and spent seven years as a senior leader within a large SEMH Academy Trust. Prior to returning to the UK, she spent six years in Australia as a senior social worker and specialist forensic child interviewer. Across every setting, Laura has championed the belief that schools can be transformative spaces for children and families. She is passionate about systemic approaches and their power to create meaningful, sustainable change.

Maya is a trainee family and systemic psychotherapist who has worked at Pears Family School since 2018, firstly as a Class Teacher and now as an Assistant Headteacher and SENCO. Her interest in systemic ideas has been growing steadily through her work with families in education and charity contexts over the last 15 years. At Pears Family School her favourite part of her role is working alongside families so that they are positioned more powerfully within school or societal systems that often contribute to how they might feel they are failing or powerless.

In this episode, we are joined by pioneering systemic psychotherapist, organisational consultant, and author Christine Oliver for a rich conversation exploring systemic approaches to organisational life, leadership, and change.

Drawing from over 30 years of experience across the NHS, charities, international organisations, faith communities, and private consultancy, Christine reflects on how systemic and social constructionist ideas can help organisations navigate complexity, conflict, hierarchy, and uncertainty.

Together, we explore reflexive inquiry, relational leadership, organisational culture, moral story-making, appreciative inquiry, and the power of conversation in shaping teams and systems. Christine shares insights from her influential work in consultancy and psychotherapy, including how organisations can create spaces where people think together with greater clarity, accountability, and respect.

We also discuss power and positionality in organisations, the challenges of leadership, and how systemic practitioners can work collaboratively in ways that move beyond expert-driven models of change.

This episode will be valuable for therapists, leaders, consultants, coaches, educators, and anyone interested in applying systemic thinking beyond the therapy room.

Christine brings warmth, wisdom, and decades of experience to this thoughtful and deeply practical conversation.

http://www.christineoliver.net/

In this episode of The Systemic Way, we speak with Rick Murphy and Lisa Dvorjetz about their book A Systemic Approach to Integrative Counselling (2024) and the growing need to bring relational thinking into everyday therapeutic practice.

Together, we explore how familiar counselling models such as person-centred, psychodynamic, CBT, Gestalt, and action-based approaches can be reworked through systemic ideas of context, relationships, patterns, and meaning. Rather than locating distress solely within the individual, Rick and Lisa invite us to consider how problems are shaped and sustained through interaction, culture, family histories, and wider social systems.

We discuss what this means for therapists working one-to-one, how counsellors can develop systemic thinking without abandoning their core model, and why integration needs more than simply combining techniques. This is a rich conversation about practice, ethics, creativity, and the future of counselling.

Essential listening for counsellors, psychotherapists, family therapists, trainees, supervisors, and anyone interested in moving beyond individualised understandings of human struggle.

A Systemic Approach to Integrative Counselling (Amazon)

https://amzn.eu/d/02FDlcHh