How can schools and professionals move past performative empathy to build genuine, supportive partnerships with the parents of children with SEND? Far too often, the intense pressures within the educational system pit schools and families against each other, creating defensiveness instead of a united team around the child.

In this episode of Trauma Informed Conversations, we sit down with trauma-informed trainer, author, and educator Graham Chatterley to bridge this gap. Drawing from both his extensive professional career in special education and his deeply personal lived experience as a father to his son Daniel, who has complex medical and neurodivergent needs, Graham shines a vital light on the unseen realities of SEND parenting.

Together, we unpack the psychological journey and emotional grief that parents navigate, the exhausting physical toll of around-the-clock caregiving, and the critical need for schools to offer genuine validation and emotional safety rather than lip service. Graham shares practical insights into rethinking the use of one-to-one support, prioritizing proactive sensory regulation over reactive crisis management, and why protecting legal safeguards like EHCPs is more vital than ever in today’s challenging landscape.

What We Cover:

• Bridging the Home-School Divide: Overcoming the "us versus them" narrative to establish a foundation of emotional safety, mutual trust, and effective collaboration.
• The Realities of Performative Empathy: Why parents see right through standard procedural responses and how listening to hear—rather than just to respond—can save relationships.
• The "Grief" and Journey of SEND Parenting: Understanding the emotional phases families go through—denial, anger, bargaining, and eventually acceptance—and why schools must meet parents exactly where they are.
• Preventative vs. Reactive Interventions: The resource-saving power of early, short interventions (like sensory circuits) compared to managing a child in full crisis.
• Rethinking One-to-One Support: How to frame and utilise individual adult support to facilitate safety and independence without causing environmental manipulation.
• The High Stakes of SEND Reform: A look at why parents are deeply anxious about shifts to the EHCP framework and the essential nature of legal protections for vulnerable young people.

About the Guest:

Graham Chatterley is a highly respected behaviour specialist, consultant, and author of Building Positive Behaviour and Changing Perceptions: Deciphering the Language of Behaviour. As the Director of Changing Perceptions Limited, an advisor with When the Adults Change, and a senior licensed tutor for Team Teach, he has dedicated his career to embedding empathy, relational strategies, and trauma-informed practices across all sectors of education. A former primary and secondary school teacher, Graham went on to lead specialist SEMH (Social, Emotional, and Mental Health) outreach provisions designed to support children at risk of exclusion. Beyond his professional expertise, Graham sits on "both sides of the fence" as a parent. His first hand lived experience caring for his son, Daniel who has complex medical and neurodivergent needs including autism, ADHD, sensory processing disorder, and epilepsy - deeply fuels his passionate advocacy for building authentic emotional safety and collaboration between schools and families.

Links & Resources

Building Positive Behaviour

Changing Perceptions: Deciphering the Language of Behaviour

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