Recorded live at The Grange Manor in Grangemouth, this powerful panel discussion explored how exploitation is evolving in today’s digital world. Whether you work with young people, are raising children through uncertain times, or simply want to deepen your understanding, this conversation offered vital insight.

Exploitation in 2025 isn’t always visible. It can occur through a screen, behind closed doors, or in plain sight. From exposure to pornography and online grooming, to coercion via social media and peer pressure, young people are facing risks previous generations could hardly imagine.

Hosted by public health expert Dr Linda de Caestecker, the panel featured:

• Professor Alexis Jay, renowned child protection expert and former Chair of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse
• Lyndsay McDade, Fearless Lead at Crimestoppers, who has spearheaded national campaigns including work on sextortion awareness

Together, they unpacked the current landscape of online exploitation, how it manifests, and what practical steps we can take to better support and protect the young people in our lives.

What we covered:

• How online platforms can be used for grooming, coercion, and exploitation
• The risks young people face around what they learn online about sex and relationships
• The importance of early intervention, open dialogue, and spotting warning signs
• How parents, carers, educators, and professionals can respond with clarity and compassion

This episode is part of Care Visions’ commitment to raising awareness and empowering communities to take action.

In this insightful episode of Family Talk, Independent Chartered Psychologist Edwina Grant sat down with Dr Linda de Caestecker, Public Health Doctor, and David King, Supervising Social Worker and PACE trainer, to explore how the PACE model—Playfulness, Acceptance, Curiosity, and Empathy—can transform relationships with children who have experienced stress or trauma.

Designed for parents and caregivers, this online event offered a compassionate, trauma-informed approach to nurturing emotional regulation, trust, and healing.

Children who face emotional challenges often carry feelings of shame and mistrust, which can shape their behaviours and relationships. PACE provides a brain-based, relational framework that supports safe and secure connections while fostering understanding and resilience.

In this session, listeners learned how to:

• Use the four elements of PACE to strengthen bonds with their child
• Support emotional co-regulation and reflective behaviour
• Recognise and address the impact of shame and emotional overwhelm
• Create a nurturing environment where healing and growth are possible

By focusing on the child’s internal experience rather than just outward behaviours, PACE helps to reduce conflict, build trust, and promote lasting connection.

About our guest:

Edwina Grant is an Independent Chartered Psychologist with over 30 years of experience working with children and families across residential, therapeutic, and local authority settings. She currently provides assessments, training, consultancy, and therapeutic support through both statutory and voluntary organisations. Edwina is also a Trustee of Scottish Attachment in Action (www.scottishattachmentinaction.org), a charity dedicated to promoting secure attachment across Scotland and influencing positive change in social policy, education, and mental health.

Iain McGilchrist, a leading psychiatrist and global thinker, brought a vast body of work and deep insight into how we think, why we think, who we are, and how we understand our place in the world. In his latest book The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World, Iain posed urgent and unsettling questions. What was the world? How could we understand concepts such as consciousness, matter, space and time? Was the cosmos without purpose or value? And could we really afford to neglect the sacred and the divine?

Iain’s perspective challenged conventional thinking. He explored how different sides of the brain worked together to shape our emotions, our character and our sense of self. He was committed to the idea that the mind and brain could only be truly understood in the broadest context: not only our physical and spiritual existence, but also the wider human culture that shaped, and was shaped by, our brains and minds.

About Iain McGilchrist
A former Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, Iain was also an Associate Fellow of Green Templeton College, a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He served as Consultant Emeritus at the Bethlem and Maudsley Hospital in London and held a research fellowship in neuroimaging at Johns Hopkins University Medical School in Baltimore. He also became a Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Studies in Stellenbosch.
Iain lived on the Isle of Skye, off the coast of north-west Scotland, where he continued to write and lecture worldwide. His work had appeared in most major media outlets, and he had taken part in numerous radio and television programmes and documentaries, including the BBC’s The Moral Maze, Start the Week and Today.

About Humphrey Hawksley
Humphrey Hawksley, an award-winning author and journalist, hosted the weekly Goldster Magazine Show, where he interviewed prominent figures from the worlds of health, culture, travel and adventure. A long-serving BBC foreign correspondent, Humphrey reported on global crises with a particular focus on Asia, where he opened the BBC’s first television bureau in Beijing.
He also hosted the monthly Democracy Forum Debates, created the Rake Ozenna political thriller series, and authored Asian Waters: The Struggle over the Indo-Pacific and the Challenge to American Power. He lectured at institutions such as the RAND Corporation, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, and MENSA Cambridge.

Questions that drove the conversation included:

• Was the world essentially inert and mechanical, just a collection of things to be used?
• Were we ourselves simply the playthings of chance, caught in a struggle of all against all?
• Why were we engaged in destroying everything of value to us?

This live online event offered a rare opportunity to hear Iain McGilchrist and Humphrey Hawksley delve into these fundamental questions in a rich and thought-provoking dialogue.

Children and young people who had experienced adversity in their early years often struggled to cope with their day-to-day lives. In this live online event, Dr Laura Steckley discussed and described approaches that could help them overcome developmental injuries through care and relationships.

Who was this talk for?
This talk was intended for anyone with an interest in children’s wellbeing and development. It was especially relevant for professionals working with children and young people in social, educational and community-based settings, as well as anyone considering a career in youth work, residential child care or fostering services.

About our guest speaker: Dr Laura Steckley
Formerly a practitioner and manager in residential child care in both the USA and Scotland, Laura became a senior lecturer at the University of Strathclyde, School of Social Work and Social Policy. She led the MSc in Advanced Residential Child Care and researched and published widely on a range of subjects related to child care practice and approaches.

Alongside Ruth Emond and Autumn Roesch-Marsh, Laura co-authored A Guide to Therapeutic Child Care. The book reflected their shared passion for making theory and research accessible and useful to practitioners supporting children in their care.

About our host: Humphrey Hawksley
Author, commentator and broadcaster, Humphrey Hawksley reported on major global trends, events and conflicts, most notably in his role as a BBC foreign correspondent. His work included documentaries examining human rights abuses in global trade, the failures of international development, the nuclear industry and democracy across different societies.

Humphrey was also the author of the acclaimed Future History series and had published four international thrillers. His writing appeared in most major broadsheets, and he had lectured at many of the world’s most prestigious universities.

Separation and divorce often felt like an emotional whirlwind, not just for parents but for children too. As parents, we tried to shield our children from hurt while helping them make sense of the changes unfolding around them. It was a delicate balance that could easily feel overwhelming.

In this episode of Care Visions Family Talk, Dr Linda de Caestecker spoke with Sue Atkins, a parenting coach, broadcaster and best-selling author, to explore how we could support children through the challenges of separation and divorce.

With over 35 years of experience as a parenting coach and Deputy Headteacher, Sue had been a guiding light for countless families navigating tough times. Many recognised her from ITV’s This Morning, Good Morning Britain or BBC Radio, where she shared heartfelt, practical advice to help parents support their children in building resilience and finding stability during periods of change.

Sue was also the creator of the award-winning Divorce Journal for Kids, a thoughtful resource designed to help children process their feelings around divorce. She had written several books, including Parenting Made Easy – How to Raise Happy Children, offering compassionate guidance to parents on starting difficult conversations and creating a nurturing environment.

Whether you had experienced separation yourself or wanted to support someone who had, this conversation offered warmth and practical advice to help families move forward together. Tune in to listen, connect and support one another.

More information on Sue and her extensive work was available via her website: Sue Atkins The Parenting Coach

In this heartfelt episode of Care Visions Family Talk, Public Health Doctor Dr Linda de Caestecker spoke with renowned family therapist and author Caroline Penney, who brought both professional expertise and personal insight to the conversation on parenting.

Drawing from her book The Parenting Toolkit, Caroline explored why self-care is essential—not selfish—and how caring for ourselves directly supports our children’s wellbeing. She also reflected on how our own childhood experiences shape the way we parent, often in unconscious ways, and offered gentle, practical guidance for breaking unhelpful patterns and parenting with more confidence, connection, and compassion.

What Listeners Took Away from the Episode:

• The importance of self-care as a foundation for effective parenting
• Insight into how generational patterns influence our approach to raising children
• Practical tools for navigating parenting with greater balance and ease
• Encouragement to reflect, learn, and grow in a supportive, non-judgemental space

About Our Guest:

Caroline Penney is a systemic family therapist and leading parenting expert with over 30 years’ experience. A descendant of Sigmund and Anna Freud, she has dedicated her career to supporting families through evidence-based parenting courses and therapeutic work. Caroline’s background spans nursing, teaching, and community-based parenting education, including her leadership of the Empowering Parents, Empowering Communities project at South London and Maudsley Hospital. Her programmes—such as Baby and Us, Being A Parent, and Understanding Teenagers—have reached families across the UK and internationally in countries including Australia, Nigeria, Nepal, and Sri Lanka.

For more information, visit: Caroline Penney – Parenting Specialist and Family Therapist.

In this inspiring episode, Clinical Psychologist Dr Bettina Hohnen joined Public Health Doctor Dr Linda de Caestecker for a compassionate and insightful conversation on neurodiversity. Dr Hohnen shared her unique approach, blending cutting-edge scientific research with empathy and practical wisdom, to help listeners better understand and support neurodiverse children.

What Listeners Gained from the Episode:

• A clear understanding of what neurodiversity means
• Guidance and support for parenting neurodiverse children
• Strategies for creating safe, nurturing environments where children can thrive
• Practical tools for applying the science of neurodiversity in everyday life

Whether parents, carers, educators, or professionals, listeners walked away with valuable insights to help nurture mental health, celebrate neurodiversity, and lay strong foundations for wellbeing.

About Our Guest:

Dr Bettina Hohnen is a Clinical Psychologist who specialises in supporting parents and families in the context of neurodiversity. With a background in academic research and teaching at UCL, she brought both depth and clarity to the conversation, translating complex scientific ideas into accessible, actionable strategies. Known for her warm, trust-building approach, Dr Hohnen is passionate about helping young people grow by supporting the adults in their lives to create the right conditions for them to flourish.

In this episode, Dr Linda de Caestecker from Care Visions Family Talk sat down for a practical and heartfelt conversation with Stewart McClean from Mellow Parenting to explore what truly makes parenting effective, compassionate, and impactful. Rooted in the belief that strong relationships are the foundation of every child’s development, Mellow Parenting brought deep insight and warmth to the discussion.

What Listeners Took Away from the Episode:

• How small, intentional actions can strengthen relationships and build resilience
• Practical, accessible techniques for creating a nurturing family environment
• Real-life stories of how Mellow Parenting has empowered families to thrive

About Our Guest:

Stewart McClean, National Development Officer at Mellow Parenting, brought over a decade of experience as a trainer and practitioner. His role involved supporting Mellow practitioners across the UK, delivering programmes alongside families, and sharing insights from the incredible work being done to support children, young people, and carers. A father of two teenagers, Stewart also enjoyed coaching football in his spare time.

About Mellow Parenting:

For over 25 years, Mellow Parenting has remained committed to enhancing family relationships, mental health, and overall wellbeing. They support partner organisations in delivering evidence-based early intervention programmes through training, supervision, peer learning, and collaborative opportunities - creating lasting, meaningful change for families across the UK and beyond.