THE RESILIENT HUB PODCAST · SEASON 10, EPISODE 10
SHOW NOTES
"Trust is not given. It is earned. Slowly, quietly, in the accumulation of ordinary moments."
In all the years I've been doing this work — sitting with young people and their families, walking into schools, being in the rooms where the real conversations happen — there is one thing that comes up more than any technique, any model, any framework.
People heal when they feel safe enough to be honest. And they feel safe enough to be honest when someone has shown them — consistently, over time — that they are not going anywhere.
At The Resilient Kid we meet young people where they are. Not where we need them to be. Not where the curriculum says they should be. Where they actually are, right now, in this moment. And we wrap around them 360 degrees — therapy room, family home, school corridor — because real change happens when everyone around that young person is working together.
But before any of that can work, something else has to come first.
Trust.
This episode is about what it actually takes to build it with a young person who has every reason not to give it. And about the moment — on a grey Tuesday afternoon, walking side by side with a hot chocolate going cold in a paper cup — when Mia finally let us in.
Mia was fifteen when she came to us. By that point she had been seen by four different services in three years. A school counsellor who left. A CAMHS referral that led to a waiting list and then a discharge. A voluntary sector worker who lost her funding. A social worker who changed three times in eighteen months.
Four services. Three years. Not one consistent face.
What that does to a young person is not just leave them without support. It teaches them something. It teaches them that adults come and go. That the moment you start to trust someone — the moment you let them see a little of what is actually going on — they leave. And so Mia had learned, not consciously but in her bones, to give just enough to keep things moving. Never enough to risk anything real.
This episode is about what happened when we stopped trying to break through the wall and started sitting alongside it instead. It is about Brené Brown's BRAVING framework and what it tells us about why trust is so hard to rebuild once it has been broken. It is about the neuroscience of why a walk and a hot chocolate can do what a therapy room sometimes cannot. And it is about the moment Mia asked the most vulnerable question she knew how to ask — and what we said back.
This one is for every professional who has ever sat with a young person who wouldn't let them in. And for every young person who has learned, through painful experience, that letting people in is not safe.
It doesn't have to stay that way.
00:00 — Intro: Trust — what has to come before everything else
02:00 — Mia's Story, Part One — four services, three years, not one consistent face
07:00 — The Research: Polyvagal Theory, walk and talk therapy, and Brené Brown's BRAVING inventory
14:00 — Top Tips: Building trust with a young person who has every reason not to
17:00 — Mia's Story, Part Two — the walk, the hot chocolate, and the okay
21:00 — The Bigger Picture: The cost of a broken system
23:00 — The Close: Tell them the truth. And then prove it.
24:30 — Outro and resources
Polyvagal Theory — Stephen Porges Our nervous system is constantly reading cues of safety and danger in our environment, and the physiological state we are in determines what we are capable of emotionally. For a young person like Mia, a therapy room had become a cue for guardedness — triggering a low-level threat response that kept part of her brain scanning for danger rather than available for honest, reflective conversation. You cannot think your way into feeling safe. Safety has to be felt in the body first.
?? Porges, S. — The Pocket Guide to the Polyvagal Theory (W.W. Norton, 2017)
Walk and Talk Therapy — Nature, Movement and the Therapeutic Relationship When we walk alongside someone rather than sitting across from them, the face-to-face dynamic — which for a guarded young person can feel like being watched and assessed — is removed. Side by side is the position of accompaniment, not examination. Movement also activates bilateral stimulation of the body which reduces emotional arousal and increases access to reflective thinking. And being outside disrupts the learned cue of the therapy room, creating a gap in which something real can slip through. ?? Jordan, M. and Hinds, J. — Ecotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016)
?? van der Kolk, B. — The Body Keeps the Score (Penguin, 2014)
Brené Brown — The BRAVING Inventory Brown's research found that trust is not built in grand gestures or single defining moments. It is built in the smallest of moments. Quietly. Over time. Her BRAVING inventory breaks trust down into seven specific elements — and when mapped onto the experience of a young person who has been passed from service to service, it shows exactly what has been broken and exactly what needs to be rebuilt.
B — Boundaries. Do you respect my boundaries and honour yours?
R — Reliability. Do you do what you say you will do, consistently, over time?
A — Accountability. When you make a mistake, do you own it and make it right?
V — Vault. Do you keep what I share with you confidential? Is my story safe with you?
I — Integrity. Do you choose courage over comfort? Do you practise your values?
N — Non-judgement. Can I tell you how I feel without being judged for it?
G — Generosity. Do you extend the most generous interpretation to my intentions?
For Mia, every single one of these elements had been undermined — not by bad people, but by a broken system. And this is what the therapeutic relationship at The Resilient Kid was quietly, consistently rebuilding. One element at a time. Starting with reliability.
?? Brown, B. — Daring Greatly (Penguin, 2012)
?? Brown, B. — The Gifts of Imperfection (Hazelden Publishing, 2010)
Attachment Theory — Mary Ainsworth Secure attachment — the experience of having a safe base — is built through repeated experiences of a caregiver being present, responsive, and consistent. For young people like Mia whose experience of adults has been anything but consistent, the therapeutic relationship has to do reparative attachment work. It has to become, over time, the safe base that was never reliably there. Safe bases are not built in sixty-minute weekly sessions alone. They are built in the accumulation of small moments.
?? Ainsworth, M. — Patterns of Attachment (Lawrence Erlbaum, 1978)
Breaks in Provision — Children's Commissioner for England Research by the Children's Commissioner has found that a significant proportion of young people referred to mental health services experience at least one break in provision before reaching stable support. Each break is not just an inconvenience. Each break is a lesson. And the lesson is: don't bother trusting.
?? Homepage | Children's Commissioner for England
CAMHS Waiting Times In many areas of England CAMHS waiting lists currently stretch to eighteen months. Voluntary sector services — often the most relational and flexible, and most able to reach young people like Mia — are chronically underfunded and first to face cuts when budgets tighten.
?? YoungMinds — YoungMinds | Mental Health Charity For Children And Young People ?? NHS Digital — Mental Health of Children and Young People in England (2022)
Don't take the wall personally The wall was built before you arrived, by experiences that had nothing to do with you. Your job is not to demolish it. Your job is to be so consistently, boringly safe that the young person eventually decides — on their own terms, in their own time — that they don't need it quite so high around you.
Match your energy to theirs, not your agenda If they come in flat, sit in the flat with them. If they're closed, don't push for open. Meet them exactly where they are and let them feel that wherever they are is acceptable. There is no wrong way to show up here.
Do things side by side, not face to face Walk. Make something. Look at something together. Side by side says: I am not watching you. I am with you. For a young person who is used to being assessed, that is a completely different experience.
Name the pattern without blame When the time is right, name what has happened to them. "I know you've been here before. With other people. And I know they didn't stay. I want you to know that I know that — and I'm not going anywhere." Then prove it. Week after week. By still being there.
Let the small moments be enough Not every session will feel significant. Some will feel like nothing happened. Trust the accumulation. Trust that showing up, being consistent, and remembering the small things is doing something — even when it doesn't look like it. The walk with the hot chocolate looked like nothing. It was everything.
Brown, B. — Daring Greatly | Penguin (2012)
Brown, B. — The Gifts of Imperfection | Hazelden Publishing (2010)
Porges, S. — The Pocket Guide to the Polyvagal Theory | W.W. Norton (2017)
Ainsworth, M. — Patterns of Attachment | Lawrence Erlbaum (1978)
van der Kolk, B. — The Body Keeps the Score | Penguin (2014)
Jordan, M. and Hinds, J. — Ecotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice | Palgrave Macmillan (2016)
Children's Commissioner for England — Homepage | Children's Commissioner for England
YoungMinds — YoungMinds | Mental Health Charity For Children And Young People
Anna Freud Centre — Mental Health Charity
CAMHS Resources — camhsresource.org.uk
National Youth Agency — NYA Home - National Youth Agency
Has this episode brought something up for you? Are you a professional who has sat with a young person and wondered how to reach them? Or someone who has been that young person — the one with the wall up — and found someone who stayed anyway?
We would love to hear from you.
Youtube Link: https://youtu.be/VsPOiLZggKo
Spotify Link: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6pYJiLPoEfUSWOoi10vmT9?si=fL8iBCbrTkyU4ufx1l2yiA
#TheResilientKid #TheMomentTheyLetMeIn
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Sharing this episode with a colleague, a therapist, a youth worker, or anyone who works with young people who have learned not to trust
Passing it to your team — the BRAVING framework alone is worth a team discussion
Mia is a fictionalised composite created to protect client confidentiality while honouring the truth of the work. She is not one specific young person — but she represents many real ones. Every identifying detail has been changed. The emotional truth has not.
If you see yourself in Mia — if you have been passed from service to service and learned that the sensible thing is not to bother — please know that it doesn't have to stay that way. You deserved consistency. You still do.
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The Resilient Kid Podcast is produced by Chantelle Venter at maddatu.com on behalf of The Resilient People, trading as The Resilient Kid, The Resilient Teen and The Resilient School.
Topics: resilience, parenting, school wellbeing, boundaries, mental health, education, personal growth, relationships
