Dyadic Developmental Practice (DDP): Offering safe passage to healing and connection for unaccompanied minors, young asylum seekers and refugees

Summary

• The DDP (Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy) approach was originally created as a therapy for children and young people who are adopted or in the care system and has grown into a therapeutic practice model which is widely employed across diverse
  services.
• DDP can be effectively adapted and stretched to help us make therapeutic connections with unaccompanied minors, young asylum seekers and refugees who are parentless.
• Deepening our awareness of our own positionality and intersectional identity as practitioners within systems which have a high potential for oppressive and discriminatory practice is explored.
• Key themes and recommendations for those practitioners wishing to bring a DDP approach to this area of their practice are proposed.

© The British Psychological Society 2024

This article is in The Child & Family Clinical Psychology Review, No 9 Autumn 2024.

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