Therapeutic Care

The Road Less Travelled

Welcome to Therapeutic Care

I’m Damien McLellan, a practicing psychotherapist and course leader of the Carlow College Masters in Leadership in Therapeutic Child and Social Care Course, which I co-founded with Peter Kieran and Dorothy Casey in 2004. I also lead the Carlow College Certificate in Therapeutic Foster Care Course, delivered in conjunction with TUSLA and St Bernard’s Children’s Services.

I have been training foster carers, social care workers and social workers in this approach since 1995 (see CV).

This website is intended as a resource for social care workers, foster carers, social workers, and all interested in what a therapeutic approach means in theory and practice. It offers a ‘how to do it’ Manual, as well as easy access to a wealth of relevant material and related websites.

I have a recreational interest in History, especially ancient roads and ways, and I recently contributed a guest blog on King Henry 11 in Ireland

Carlow College

This is a link to Carlow College and to the much revised MA in Leadership in Therapeutic Child & Social Care Course. Peter Kieran and I founded the original MA in Therapeutic Child Care Course at Carlow College in 2004. It was closely modeled on the MATCC course developed by Adrian Ward and his colleagues at the University of Reading who generously shared their ground-breaking template with us.