ABSTRACT
McLeod’s story starts in July 2014, the day his two adopted sons were placed with McLeod and his partner Mark. Black and British-born with Guyanese and Trinidadian roots, McLeod comes from a traditional working-class family. Mark is white English, born in Kent with a conventional English middle-class family. The two adopted boys reflect their mixed backgrounds. In this chapter, McLeod gives a picture of everyday life living with children who have experienced an adverse early childhood. He discusses the challenges of caring for developmentally traumatised children. Combining theory and personal experiences, he emphasises the importance of therapeutic parenting and proposes the idea that schools could benefit from adopting a trauma-informed approach with neurodiverse pupils.
