Kate Cairns

After a lifetime working with vulnerable children and their families, I find joy in sharing ideas with others who are taking such work forward. Our associates take the work of researchers and theorists from around the world and make it useful for everyday life and work.

Kate has been a social worker for fifty years, and a trainer for thirty years.

With her husband Brian and their three birth children, Kate provided a permanent family for twelve other children between 1975 and 1997. Thereafter, she worked as a trainer/consultant and writer for the British Association for Adoption and Fostering. In 2002 she published Attachment, Trauma and Resilience, which explored how these three key concepts could provide a structure for understanding ourselves and those with whom we work. The book became a bestseller for BAAF and has influenced practice around the world.

Over the past decade, Kate has concentrated on translating the insights of current neuroscientific research on brain development and function into accessible knowledge and practice skills for carers and practitioners working with children and young people, and for those who support them. She has developed online learning and vocational qualifications, and provided widely-acclaimed training and consultancy to both universal and specialist services across social work, child care, health and education.

Since conducting research for her first book, Surviving Paedophilia (now reissued as Circles of Harm), Kate has been convinced that working with vulnerable people has to be a collaborative exercise. She therefore feels it is a great privilege to be part of a group of associates who embody the shared understanding and vision, and the unity of purpose and action, that are the vital ingredients for supporting recovery and transformation after trauma.

• 2021- present: Trainer Consultant KCA
• 2011–2021: Director, KCA
• 2009–2011: Training Manager, als-akamas ltd
• 2004–2009: Founder & Training Director, Akamas Ltd
• 2002–2004: Training Director (Social Care), SfE
• 2001–2002: Chair of Adoption Panel, Gloucestershire CC
• 1999–2002: Trainer/Consultant, British Association for Adoption and Fostering (BAAF)
• 1996–1999: Training Officer (Looked After Children), Gloucestershire CC
• 1975–1997: Joint Head of Home/Foster Carer, Children's Family Trust

• Certificate in Social Work Education, NISW, 1989
• CQSW, Bristol University, 1986
• Diploma in Social Administration, Sheffield University, 1973
• BA (Hons) Theology & Social Science, Cambridge University, 1971

• Certificate in Social Work Education, NISW, 1989
• CQSW, Bristol University, 1986
• Diploma in Social Administration, Sheffield University, 1973
• BA (Hons) Theology & Social Science, Cambridge University, 1971