About us
We support children and parents through difficult and often emotional situations. At the heart of CFS is a commitment to clarity, compassion and lasting impact. Our team provides assessments, therapeutic work and practical guidance to help families move forward, with a clear focus on the child’s needs.
Our Proposition
CFS: From complexity to clarity
Family conflicts. Raised emotions. Overwhelming situations. When there are family conflicts during separation and divorce, it can feel impossible to untangle. That impacts the whole family, and especially the children. We’re here to bring clarity to all that confusion, and get the best result for all.
Child & Family Solutions offers independent social work assessment and mediation services to help resolve family issues, work through conflict and reunite parents and children. We offer balanced, fair guidance that can help the whole family confidently and constructively navigate what feels like an overwhelming situation. By cutting through all the heightened emotions and subjectivity we find positive ways forward and bring refreshing clarity.
Because with clarity you can do the right thing.
Our Vision
A brighter, fairer future for all family members going through separation.
Our Mission
We provide high-quality, balanced and expert support services to families in complex situations. We always seek to find bespoke solutions and go the extra mile for the children and families we’re entrusted by.
Our Values
Be professionally curious
Asking “why?” is one of the most powerful tools we have. Being professionally curious helps us cut through the noise and get to the bottom of complex issues.
Act with integrity
We operate with integrity and remain true to our principles. We are responsive, because that’s what families need. If we see something we disagree with we speak out. We respectfully challenge each other, our clients and the system when we expect better.
Solve as a team
Our cohesive and collaborative approach is central to how we work. That’s how we deliver a truly effective, holistic service. We consult with colleagues, bring in expert opinions and find solutions together.
Our Team
Alison Bushell
Founder & Lead Consultant
Ashley Pledger
Director
Zoe Bourner
Workflow & Business Manager
M’Caela Parker
Independent Social Worker
Stacy Herbert
Independent Social Worker
Wolsey Bonnick – Junior
Senior Family Practitioner
Amanda McPherson
Senior Family Practitioner
Reem Ali
Senior Family Practitioner and Therapist
Jessi Medd-Sygrove
Family Practitioner
Kevin George
Therapist & Youth Mentor
Kam Kaur
Independent Social Worker & Therapist
Dr. David Iniama
Family Practitioner
Dr Liz Rees
Consultant Clinical Psychologist & Therapist
Maria Riaz
Independent Social Worker
Sarah Noel
Independent Social Worker & Therapist
Mike Flinn
Therapist
Aleasia Grant
Independent Social Worker
Miriam Marchese
Family Practitioner
Ian Smith
Senior Family Practitioner & Counsellor
Melissa Gray
Family Practitioner
Why choose us
Therapeutic Social Work & Systemic Therapy with Families.
CFS has developed a specialism in cases where there is some evidence of hostile parenting and difficulties with contact and post separation care arrangements. Alison in particular has developed casework expertise in this area over many years having worked as a Guardian and now as an ISW almost exclusively with proceedings involving allegations of parental alienation and associated harm.
She has successfully reunited many children with an estranged parent and where this hasn’t been possible has successfully managed several changes of residence for the children concerned.
All our ISWs however are familiar with and some have specific training in this area of family law and understand the very specific needs of the children involved.
We are able to recognise the signs of children being caught between their parents and also to identify when a parent is actively preventing a child from enjoying a relationship with the other parent following separation.
We have been commended by judges, lawyers and psychologists for our sensitive yet robust approach to this particular family dysfunction and moreover for the good outcomes we achieve.
Reunification Work
We are able to work intensively on a reunification plan for children who have been separated from a parent and where the attachment has been disrupted. Whilst many practitioners work on a daytime only basis we believe that to normalise contact and re-establish a fragmented attachment extended contact is sometime necessary. We utlise the knowledge and expertise, where necessary, of our in house therapists, not all of whom feature on our website and involve the excellent network of advisors and specialists in whom we trust who are on hand to advise on specific issues.
(more details under ‘what we do’ and also available on request)
Reducing Delay
Delay is known to be unhelpful in family cases and is inimical to the best interests of children within proceedings. The stress of Court proceedings for all concerned is protracted when there is delay due to reports being ordered that can’t start or when there is a wait to allocate an assessor. Here at CFS we are responsive and there is always someone able to begin work within a matter of two or three weeks, sometimes sooner. This also means that you won’t usually need to wait to spend time with your children as we can offer almost immediate supervision of contact.
Direct & Therapeutic Work
We are all skilled in direct work and trained in being able to engage with children of all ages to ascertain their wishes and feelings.
With the many years of experience we all have within family work we have a wealth of tools and resources in order to help put the more nervous child at ease including those with complex special needs.
We sometimes utilise the calming and reassuring presence of Molly, the emotional support dog who works well with children and parents alike.
Children can exhibit differing and complex reactions to their parents having separated, and we are able to assist and guide parents and carers in how best to manage this unsettling time for them. Between us we have many qualifications and much experience in systemic practice with families.
International Cases
We have experience of managing international cases and have experience of working with interpreters and managing the demands of cultural and religious issues.
We can cover cases not in our immediate locality and have worked all over the UK as well as abroad.
We can assist with Leave to Remove applications and have considerable experience in the assessment of such cases.
Professional Standards – ISW Team
Our ISWs are all SWE registered, and are also members of NAGALRO or BASW, which means they have full professional indemnity insurance.
Some of the ISWs receive professional supervision and we also practice peer supervision as a team.
FP Team
We ensure that we value what the FP team bring to the company in terms of their knowledge and skill input and their invaluable work with families by proving full professional indemnity insurance and public liability insurance cover for them.
All FP staff have safeguarding training and are recruited and currently supervised by the Director. All reports are quality assured before being sent out.
Reflective & Responsive Practice
We are committed to developing our professional practice in line with emerging research and case law and keep abreast of new developments in these areas.
We are keen to practice reflectively and to this end we collaborate with each other and frequently co-work so as to learn from each other and benefit from the widest possible skill base.
Our Ethos
Diversity Statement
We actively challenge all forms of discrimination and we value diversity.
We take anti discriminatory social work practice into all our areas of expertise.
We believe that children have the right to a relationship with both parents and that shared parenting is likely to best meet the needs of children whose parents have separated.
Shared Parenting
We believe that children have the right to a relationship with both parents and that research consistently shows that shared parenting is likely to best meet the needs of children whose parents have separated.
Gender Discrimination
We are particularly aware as an agency of the unfortunate bias in some areas of the system where fathers appear sometimes to be seen, against all research evidence, as less important in their children’s lives.
This extends to the approach recently taken by many pressure groups who seek to claim that fathers seeking to retain a place in their children’s lives post separation are in fact abusing the mothers by this and moreover that they are assisted in this by the Family Court, something our practice experience as a team simply doesn’t evidence.
We are particularly alive to the issue of male victims of domestic violence and the lack of recognition and support of this cohort of our client base.
We are informed by the most reliable and up to date information and statistics on this issue, one that affects many families with whom we work and are proactive in our assessments and our reports in challenging any assumptions and bias so as to report fairly and accurately.
Collaborative Working
We believe that conciliation and a collaborative approach can work even in the most entrenched situations if we gain the trust of the family involved. Fortunately, we have developed a base of colleagues and lawyers who share our vision and who are able to refer to us and vice versa, some of these valued colleagues can be found in the ‘useful info and affiliations’ page.
Alison Bushell
Founder & Lead Consultant
She is frequently recommended to offer expert assessments and intervention in complex and high conflict cases, some of which are in the High Court.
Having had over 20 years of Local Authority social work experience, she is able to offer advice on working with most client groups, although her expertise is mainly in the field of Child Protection.
She was a Children’s Guardian – public and private law – for 10 of her years in social work.
Alison is a trained counsellor, is currently undertaking a diploma in psychotherapy and has appreciable experience of mediation and conciliation work.
She has skills in working with contact resistance and has successfully helped several estranged parents reunite with their child/ren including, where unavoidable, effecting and moreover managing a transfer of residence for those children to ensure they are able to have a relationship with both parents.
Alison works to an ethos of shared parenting, believing that children need both parents in their lives in order to flourish.
She is a member of the international organisation Leading Women for Shared Parenting (http://lw4sp.org).
Whilst she has developed a specialism in assessing cases of alienation and hostile parenting, her focus is nonetheless on repairing and working therapeutically to resolve issues arising from strained parent-child relationships.
This therapeutic work involves exploring the roots of the problem by assessment of the adults’ attachment relationships and also undertaking direct work with children that includes art and play therapy techniques she has built up over many years of working with families.
Her work to repair broken family relationships and reunite children with estranged parents is now well known and she is frequently recommended to work with long running and entrenched cases.
Alison is experienced in dealing with diversity. She has advised parents in same sex relationships and is also able to assist in culturally complex matters in an informed and skilled way.
She is also vigilant in challenging gender bias within the family Court system.
Her testimonials from both colleagues and clients attest to the respect she has built up in the Courts and to her good interpersonal skills.
She provides guidance and supervision to the team and along with the Director of Operations and the Referrals and Workflow coordinator, she ensures all the work of the team is quality assured.
She has an energetic and solutions-focused approach to the challenges of family law and consistently achieves good results for her clients.
She is now based in Norwich but is able to cover most of the South and South East and has been known to cover cases further afield including international matters.
Alison values the therapeutic practices of yoga and gardening and practices both as frequently as work allows.
Maria Riaz
Independent Social Worker
Jessi Medd-Sygrove
Independent Social Worker
Aleasia Grant
Independent Social Worker
Zoe Bourner
Workflow & Business Manager
Wolsey Bonnick – Junior
Senior Family Practitioner
Amanda McPherson
Senior Family Practitioner
Ashley Pledger
Director
Ian Smith
Counselling therapist
Miriam Marchese
Family Practitioner
Melissa Gray
Family Practitioner
Dr. David Iniama
Family Practitioner & Public Health Consultant
Reem Ali
Senior Family Practitioner
BACP Registered Therapist | MSc Counselling (Children & Young People) – in progress
Kam Kaur
Independent Senior Social Worker & Systemic Practitioner
Kevin George
Therapist
Sarah Noel
Registered Social Worker & Therapist
Dr Liz Rees
Consultant Clinical Psychologist
M’Caela Parker
Independent Social Worker
Mike Flinn
Therapist
Stacy Herbert
Independent Social Worker
BA(Hons) Social Work, MA Advanced Social Work, Social Work England registered & BASW member.
I spent the first decade of my professional career working in the Local Authority in Children’s Services safeguarding teams where I was able to gain invaluable experience working with a variety of children, young people and their families, where my passion for working with young people really developed. I then moved into more strategic roles supporting the development of good social work practice and eventually into Corporate Parenting. However, it wasn’t long before I realised that I missed working directly with families (in all their shapes and sizes) and decided to move back into practice, into an arena where the best interests of children can be at the front and centre of my practice.