ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the role of specialist therapeutic residential child care and how it can facilitate emotional growth and a subsequent sense of “belonging” for some of the most emotionally damaged children in our society. It discusses the importance of belonging in the mental health of children and young people, and the need for residential provision for some children in the care system and then focuses on how this is provided by the Mulberry Bush School. The mental health implications for a sense of belonging may be very familiar to clinicians and others with a duty of care to children and young people. Some children who have suffered severe and early complex trauma are placed in specialist residential services such as the Mulberry Bush School, where the ethos aims to provide “attuned emotional holding” to meet the needs of the child.
