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As a probation officer and social worker, Anne Bannister has successfully used creative therapies with abused children for 25 years. Combining her practical experience and recent doctoral research she reflects on how and why these therapies actually work in the healing process. She shows how in 'the space between' children and their therapists, the child and adult can each use their creative skills to aid developmental processes, reverse negative brain patterns and affect positive behavioural changes to heal the damage caused by severe abuse in childhood. The author presents a practical model called the Regenerative Approach to use when assessing and working therapeutically with traumatised children. Her research has implications for those working in the field of children's development and learning, and provides an important new approach for social workers, creative therapists and all those who work with traumatised children.

This book provides a comprehensive and wide-ranging resource for those interested in exploring and understanding why action methods are particularly useful when working with young people. Discussion of the application of action methods to work with young people focuses on differing issues and populations.

Based on observations of sexually abused children in two successive clinical groups, the study found that symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder present in the children before the therapy group, were alleviated. In particular, there was an increase in self esteem and a reduction of behavioural difficulties. Moreover, the children and their carers were very positive about the effects of the groupwork and enjoyed the intervention. In addition, two individual case studies were included. One suggested similar results to the groupwork and the other suggested that it maybe impossible to recreate positive attachment processes when a child is feeling unsafe. Similarities in the process and effects of creative therapies to the attachment process in child development were noted. Three experienced practitioners of creative therapies with children were also interviewed. These therapists also suggested links between their therapy, child development and the attachment process. Further interviews with the therapists working with the children in the main study group revealed important transferential issues between children and therapists, which again appeared to duplicate the attachment process. Consideration of the findings of the clinical groups and individual case studies, together with a synthesis of the views of all the therapists (including the researcher), and the children, led to the creation of a model for working with such children. This three-stage model used creative therapy to assess the effects of trauma on the child, to re-create the attachment process in order to further the child's development and to improve the child's regulation of affect. The research highlighted the idea that the creation of \"the space between\" or \"play space\", where new attachments can be made and the child's creativity and spontaneity can be encouraged, is crucial to healing.

The Child in Mind. A Child Protection Handbook Judy Barker and Deborah Hodes, Routledge ISBN 0415321751, £14.99 (paperback)

Deep phenotyping is an emerging trend in precision medicine for genetic disease. The shape of the face is affected in 30–40% of known genetic syndromes. Here, we determine whether syndromes can be diagnosed from 3D images of human faces. We analyzed variation in three-dimensional (3D) facial images of 7057 subjects: 3327 with 396 different syndromes, 727 of their relatives, and 3003 unrelated, unaffected subjects. We developed and tested machine learning and parametric approaches to automated syndrome diagnosis using 3D facial images. Unrelated, unaffected subjects were correctly classified with 96% accuracy. Considering both syndromic and unrelated, unaffected subjects together, balanced accuracy was 73% and mean sensitivity 49%. Excluding unrelated, unaffected subjects substantially improved both balanced accuracy (78.1%) and sensitivity (56.9%) of syndrome diagnosis. The best predictors of classification accuracy were phenotypic severity and facial distinctiveness of syndromes. Surprisingly, unaffected relatives of syndromic subjects were frequently classified as syndromic, often to the syndrome of their affected relative. Deep phenotyping by quantitative 3D facial imaging has considerable potential to facilitate syndrome diagnosis. Furthermore, 3D facial imaging of “unaffected” relatives may identify unrecognized cases or may reveal novel examples of semidominant inheritance.