Five to Thrive

Meeting the needs of others

The five to thrive model is a way of understanding how connected relationships are fundamental to human wellbeing and help us to build resilient communities. This model underpins our training and consultancy, and is interwoven throughout our bespoke learning journeys.

'The matter of the mind matters for secure attachments.'

Daniel J. Siegel, The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are

More than 90% of what we know about the brain has been discovered in the last 20 years or so – research in neuroscience is transforming how we think about wellbeing and resilience. One of the key findings is that people need people.

Five to Thrive describes a neurological sequence of relational activities that can be observed every time humans connect to meet an attachment need in another person; young humans need connected relationships to build healthy brains, and all humans need connected relationships to maintain healthy brains and recover from toxic stress (trauma). The simple key words offer a bridge between the professional understanding of neuroscience and everyday experience.

Respond · Engage · Relax · Play · Talk

Five to Thrive:

  • as a model supports the ‘noticing’ of connected relationships through strengths-based assessment
  • as an approach supports ‘being’ a relationships-based human being
  • as a framework supports the ‘teaching’ of how we can build and maintain connected relationships that meets the needs of others

'KCA have worked hard to break down the concepts into something that is so manageable, understandable and accessible. We can see that it has really strengthened understanding of families.'

Participant of KCA training from Barnardo's Scotland, 2020
Five to Thrive block

Five to Thrive as a model, an approach and a framework is helping practitioners across all sectors to deliver a consistent, science-based, and effective message when working with colleagues, parents, carers and children themselves.

To support services, practice and parents we have a range of resources and publications available. These resources support and inform any professional discipline taking a relational approach to their work and include:

  • Five to Thrive workbook – a resource to support the application of Five to Thrive in practice
  • Digital resources for professionals — from case studies and group exercises to valuable assessment tools
  • Parents guides and supplements – publications which describe the importance of attachment relationships for the developing brain and what parents can notice and do more of to support this
  • Five to Thrive cubes, blocks, posters and pop-up banners
FTT 2

'Rarely have I attended training where I feel there are so many points which I can implement as of tomorrow. Thank you, Susan. A superb session with lots of immediate positive feedback from colleagues around me.'

Participant on a Five to Thrive course from a secondary school in Hackney, Nov 2020