Transcript of audio from Dr Tim Jones

The first thing I would say is that FPS training is a scaffold. Often general practitioners have skills, they just don't know how to deploy those skills in situations that can be chaotic, changeable and confronting. But if you've got your scaffold, then you know how to be helpful and you know how to deploy those skills. So that's the bridge and that's what FPS provides.

We've seen it in the adult space for such a long time that you can know how to recognise anxiety in someone. But then if you haven't got a bunch of different tools and structures that you can then use to support someone, you won't be focused. And the outcomes, you may still get good outcomes, but you'll be dealing with a lot of uncertainty. Your care will get a little bit muddled and fragmented. The moment you've got that confidence of going ‘Hey, I, I've done a bit of work on this. I've got these things I can hook into.’

The thing when I talk to families is they need the scaffold too. They need that breakdown of, OK, well, let's subset what's going on and chunk it and just work on chunks. Families get much more transparent guidance as to care. They get much more focused care. They also get confidence that the practitioner can be entrusted with something that's very vulnerable. And I love hearing from families that, to them, it's just a willingness to go on the journey and an appearance of wanting to be that support and be a safe place, more than it is seeing you as the repository of all knowledge and wisdom. That's all they're after really. So, we're not talking about GPs becoming full psychodynamic therapists, just talking about a next level of how do you engage families.