Providing Support for
Thinking Parents in the UK

Ammana Shaka and Valerie Groves

About the facilitators and their approach:

Ammana Shaka and Valerie Groves are the co-founders of Inside Out Training Solutions. Their training is based on a new parenting paradigm which has demonstrated dramatic, positive change in families who are experiencing significant difficulties and who may be at the point of breakdown. This training is built on first generation attachment models and is aimed at overcoming the difficulties that some of the first generation therapeutic approaches left families with.

The name of the company reflects the understanding that people already have answers to the parenting questions they are searching for. The training is designed to draw out relevant resources from within parents and carers to enable them to meet the challenges of parenting traumatised children. Follow on support ensures that these individuals are guided to consistently put their new found skills into practise.

Valerie Groves

Valerie Groves is the co founder of Inside Out Training Solutions Ltd – an organisation delivering proven parenting approaches for parents with children who have experienced trauma, neglect and/or abuse and who have issues with attachment.

Valerie is a qualified Social worker who has over 30 year’s experience of working with parents and children to build successful families.

She started her vocation as a teenager, and has developed extensive professional skills in family support, working in a variety of statutory and voluntary agencies. She is passionate about helping individuals, groups and families to overcome a range of difficult issues so that they can experience the healthy dynamics of family life.

Her work has involved helping adoptive and foster families struggling with the aftermath of trauma, abuse and neglect; to overcome the difficulties from their past by using a new and highly successful approach to parenting.

Much of Valerie’s experience and insights were gained through her own life, as a mother of 5 children and, growing up with six siblings. Through her own experience as a mother, she has faced some live challenges with “difficult” behaviours which have grounded her professional work. She has also gained first hand knowledge of working with child development issues and fully understands that each individual is unique and will have different ways of reaching their own potential. Her own children are now aged between 12 and 21 years.

Valerie’s combination of professional skills and personal experience enables her to fully understand the dynamics of “struggling” families and to skilfully and compassionately work with people to overcome significant issues. Despite the fact that many families will be at “breaking point” when working with Valerie, she has successfully engaged with their issues, drawn out their own internal resources and successfully turned these situations around.

Valerie’s work style is based on principles of equality, individual worth and dignity. Her approach is ecological and holistic and assessments are initiated at an individual level. They take into account the resources available to each family unit, the influences, support and pressures at the individual, family and larger community levels.

Valerie’s work draws on theories of empowerment, pulling together a diverse range of complimentary disciplines to provide the most appropriate and relevant solutions for each family. She has developed skills in a range of communication methods, including direct work, Theraplay training and observation; and is certified to deliver interventions based on the principles of Theraplay.

Valerie delivered a 10 week parenting course with Adoptive parents for Wandsworth Local Authority based on the Beyond Consequences Approach.

Valerie is passionate about the positive impact that the right support can have in sustaining a family through crisis periods. She has worked as a Supervisory Social worker with Foster Carers and Adoptive Families and has delivered a high quality of support to prevent placement disruptions. These interventions have saved the local authority significant sums of money and also prevented further trauma to the child, the carer and wider society.

Valerie holds a BA Honours Degree in Sociology from Polytechnic of East London. She holds a Business Studies Diploma in Public Administration, a CQSW and a certificate in Adult Education to Stage 1. She has a PQ1 Certificate in Childcare. She has experience in facilitating emotional processing of traumatic events with adults in a weekend retreat in Arizona USA.

She has delivered training on the National Minimum Standards to Foster carers as well as “Skills to Foster” Training, Attachment and Contact Training , she has also facilitated support groups and training for carers Her areas of speciality include supervisory social work, attachment parenting, fostering and adoption assessments, working with trauma and promoting positive outcomes in adoption and fostering.

She is a Beyond Consequences Institute Certified Instructor. Valerie Groves together with Ammana Shaka offers a ground breaking model in a new Parenting Programme, which delivers tried and tested solutions for Adoptive and Foster parents dealing with traumatised children who present challenging behaviours.

The model is based on research from the field of Neuro–science and presents a firm foundation for parenting from a place of love and relationship as opposed to parenting from a place of fear and control.

Ammana Shaka

Ammana Shaka is an experienced training consultant with a background in Education and the Public Sector. She has over 25 years experience within Local Authority settings and has worked as a lecturer at Westminster University as well as a consultant for Private Sector and Voluntary Organisations specialising in Organisational Development and Human Resource Management.

Ammana has travelled extensively and has spent periods of her life teaching in countries abroad including Ghana and Jamaica. She is committed to empowering individuals to reach their highest potential.

Within the Public Sector, Ammana has worked in a variety of job roles including Training Manager for Children and Families in Hounslow. In this role Ammana was responsible for organising, managing and commissioning relevant training for social workers working with children in need to meet GSCC requirements.

She is also skilled in designing and delivering a diverse range of training courses around issues of team building, supervision skills diversity and stress management and business planning.

Ammana is a certified Instructor of Beyond Consequences Institute. She works with Valerie Groves to offer foster and adoptive parents training with specialised parenting solutions, directed at meeting the needs of traumatised children.

Ammana holds a B.A .Honours Degree in African History from Sussex University. Ammana hold a Diploma in Personnel Management Stage 2. She also holds a Master’s Degree in Human Resource Management from Westminster University. She has experience in facilitating emotional processing of traumatic events with adults in a weekend retreat in Arizona USA. She has extensive experience of delivering a diverse range of training courses for large and small groups as well as one-to-one mentoring/coaching.

Ammana’s style is engaging, based on principles of equality and respect for individuals. She is passionate about helping individuals, groups and families to overcome a range of difficult issues so that they can experience the healthy dynamics of family life – something which many adoptive and foster families struggling with the aftermath of trauma, abuse and neglect find difficult to achieve

Ammana is a mother of two children aged 19 years and 21 years and was brought up in a family of seven children, therefore has first hand experience of challenging family dynamics and integrates this knowledge into the work she does.

Endorsement of Ammana’s training skills

“We have had the pleasure of knowing Ammana and working with her since 2003.

Delegates acknowledge consistently her outstanding credibility, her unique style and the energy and zeal she brings to the room. She always scores highly on the training evaluations for creating an atmosphere of involvement and helping to make the learning easier. Furthermore, she has always supported us in the administration around each event, ensuring that the whole process works well for everyone.

Ammana’s belief and passion in her work are second to none. These, in combination with her skills as a trainer, help to ensure that working with her is always fruitful and productive for all.”

Steve King

Director, Bespoke Training

May, 2008