BUSS® Therapy with Us

“There is no doubt that BUSS® has changed the course of our daughter’s life”

 

Referrals

It’s great to be working with families across the UK and Ireland. Families who live within travelling distance may prefer to come to our base at Springfield Mills in West Leeds, and meet with us in person for the assessment sessions. All other work is carried out remotely using video calls.

We’re always happy to talk with parents, carers or professionals before a referral is made to think about whether BUSS® is the right fit at the right time for the family. Once we receive a referral, we’ll work with you to develop a costed proposal for a plan of work. There is more information about costs and funding routes below, or to discuss options including Self-funded, Health/Education and Local Authority funded interventions with us, please contact: info@bussmodel.org

The Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund (ASGSF)

Currently, the majority of referrals we receive are from Social Workers who plan to make applications for funding from the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund (ASGSF). We are pleased to be able to offer the BUSS® programme within the ASGSF’s current fair access limit (FAL) of £3,000.

Children and young people aged 21 or younger (or up to 25 if they have an education, health and care plan) who live in England may be eligible for the ASGSF if they:

  • have been placed for adoption (before the adoption order is made) and are waiting for adoption
  • were adopted from local authority care in the UK
  • were adopted from abroad with a recognised adoption status
  • were in care before a special guardianship order (SGO) was made
  • left care under a SGO that became an adoption order, or vice versa
  • were previously looked after and are under a residency order or child arrangement order (CAO)
  • were previously looked after but where the adoption, special guardianship, residency or CAO placement has broken down

If you are a parent/carer whose child meets this criteria, contact your Local Authority or Regional Adoption Agency to speak to a Social Worker about accessing the fund.

Introductory Webinar

Self-Funding

We accept referrals from families who would like to self-fund, and are happy to discuss options for payment plans. The cost of the BUSS® intervention is £3,000, excluding VAT.

Foster and Kinship carers can also self-fund the intervention, with the permission of the Local Authority.

For Adoptive Parents, the regulations around Post-Adoption Support for adoptees are more complex and require providers to be registered with Ofsted or providing support that has been commissioned through an Ofsted registered Adoption Support agency. BUSS®, working as part of the Oakdale Centre, is in the process of applying for Ofsted registration.

To have a conversation about self-funding, please contact us at: info@bussmodel.org

Ready to complete a referral?

Download our form below…

Completed referrals or requests for discussion can be sent to: info@bussmodel.org

Please click the button below to download a referral form:


The BUSS® (Building Underdeveloped Sensory Systems) model is based on the understanding that, where babies and young children have experienced early adversity and  missed out on safe, nurturing relationships, it’s likely that their bodies have also missed the sorts of movement opportunities that go hand in hand with those relationships. We know that babies who feel safe and happy move a lot and enjoy positive, safe experiences of touch and nurture. Babies in frightening situations (in utero and once they’re born) or who might have been born very early or with complex health needs often don’t have these same  experiences. As a result, they don’t move nearly as much as typically developing children and therefore miss those critical touch, nurture and movement experiences that are so important for the development of foundation sensorimotor systems and bodily regulation.

These systems are what help us to feel confident in our movements and develop good head, neck and shoulder strength, as well as a strong core. Our movements will generally be fairly smooth and well co-ordinated and we might use our eyes to look where we’re going, but we don’t have to watch our feet when we’re coming downstairs or our hand when we’re writing to check they’re doing the right thing.

Noticing gaps in a child’s foundational systems

Sometimes children and young people can talk about and are aware of how they feel their body works for them – what is working well and what might be more tricky. More often, children learn clever ways to compensate, adapt and use other parts of their bodies to make up for what isn’t working so well.

We’re really good at noticing what a child is doing, but if you’re wondering whether BUSS® would be helpful to your family, it’s useful to begin to notice how your child is doing things.  We’ll ask you about this if we have a chat before you decide whether you’d like to go ahead and work with us, but it’s harder than it sounds and isn’t something that we’re used to doing. We’re used to children just being able to ‘do’ things and progressing from one developmental stage to the next without having to really think about how that’s happening, so don’t worry if it takes a while to tune into noticing.

Sometimes it’s easier to start with yourself – notice what your body is doing as you sit or stand reading this. Where are you getting your stability from? If you’re sitting down, are you leaning against something? If you are, just try sitting up independently and notice what changes. I’m hoping that you can sit up, with your feet on the floor, and aren’t having to use any other parts of your body to get enough stability to stay in that position. Hopefully you don’t need to lean across the table to hold yourself up or move around constantly to just help your body know where it is.

If you can, just get up now and try to analyse how you did that. If you’re sitting at a table, did you use the table to help push yourself up? Where did the power for the movement come from? If you did push up, just sit down again and try again, this time just using your body to get up. Again think about that – which part of your body would you say ‘led’ the movement? Sometimes I think it’s useful to visualise a ‘line’ like the one you see on a TV screen when it’s a photo finish of a race and they’re analysing which runner crossed the line first. If you had an imaginary line when you’re standing up, which part of your body would cross the line first? And last? All of these things can be helpful in beginning to notice how we’re moving.

Once you’ve got used to noticing how you move, just try and observe how your child is moving, perhaps when they’re playing outside or at a playground with peers (without developmental trauma) and see how they’re holding themselves and moving about. You can also get good information from noticing everyday things at home, like how they come downstairs, carry a glass of juice, sit at the table to eat dinner, write, walk and run around.

It’s also helpful to notice what the quality of their movement is like. Do they move in a fluid, well-coordinated way? Does their body seem well synchronised so they’re able to do what they want to do without bumping into things or tripping over? Is there a smoothness about the movement?

It’s also useful to think about whether their body is giving good, reliable signals about things like whether they’re hungry; when they’re full; if they can chew and taste what they’re eating and enjoy a range of different tastes and textures. Other clues can come from thinking about what sort of state of mind they’re in most of the time – are they able to stay in the moment of an experience and enjoy what’s happening or manage someone else being in charge; do they seem quite comfortable in themselves; or do they seem vigilant and stressed, as if they’re expecting something bad to happen or struggling to manage not knowing what’s coming next?

 

Age range

The BUSS® team works with children and young people from babies onward. We’re always keen to intervene as early in the life of a child and family as possible. For babies and children whose experience of the intrauterine environment and the first months of life might have been a stressful one, it’s never too early or too soon!

We have examples of early, middle childhood, and adolescence interventions, which you can read about in the examples below. 

Before we get started…

You’re welcome to contact us to arrange to have a chat about how we work before you decide to go ahead, but all families who are referred for a BUSS® intervention are also invited to watch a brief Introduction to BUSS® webinar. We encourage exploration of the website, which is another great source of information about the model and this way of working to help you get ready for starting the work together. Parents and carers will be sent some questionnaires to complete which will help their practitioner begin to build a picture of the child’s foundation systems and which are used to help measure the effectiveness of the intervention. This will include a BUSS® Screening Tool. If you’d like to read more about the measures that we use, please click here.

When these are completed and returned to us, we will allocate a BUSS® Practitioner to begin to work with the family as soon as possible after funding has been confirmed. Before offering appointments, we always check with you first which days and times are best for you for meetings. Our core hours are 9.00am to 5.30pm. Before meeting with the family, the practitioner will review all the information from the screening questionnaires, the referral form and any other assessments provided.

 

Intervention

Session 1 – Initial Call

The initial call is for parents/carers with the allocated BUSS® Practitioner. We can arrange this via telephone or video call, whichever you feel most comfortable with. This will give the opportunity to talk through your child’s early experiences, family life, current presentation and movement, and discuss hopes and expectations for BUSS®. You can also think with your Practitioner about the best plan for working together and get a feel for the rhythm of the intervention.

Session 2 – Initial Assessment

Your Practitioner will ask you to play a range of different BUSS® activities and games with your child to help us make sense together of your child’s foundation sensorimotor systems and think about where to start. 

For face-to-face sessions, you will meet your Practitioner at our centre in Farsley (near Leeds, West Yorkshire) while if you are working with us remotely, your Practitioner will ask you to play the games at home with your child, video record them and upload the clips to a secure site to review. They will then meet with you to look at those videos together.

Parent/carer(s) will then receive a copy of the initial assessment report by email – we aim to share these within a couple of days of the assessment session. 

Session 3 – Post Assessment Check in

Following your initial assessment, your Practitioner will schedule a chat with you to answer any questions that you might have after reading the report, and think about getting started with the BUSS® activities and games. We’ll set goals together for the work and agree on your priorities. 

Sessions 4 & 5 – Calls with your Practitioner

With your Practitioner, two calls will be scheduled (typically fortnightly) to check in on how things are going. Between these contact sessions, your Practitioner will request video clips of the activities and games you’ve been playing to review progress and think with you about any adaptations that would be right for your child. We always want to make sure we get the level of challenge just right so the games are not so tricky that your child gets disheartened, but not so easy that they’re not building their foundation systems either. It’s a fine line to tread!

After every check in call, you’ll receive a brief summary of the discussion with clear next steps.

Session 6 – Midway Review

The midway review can also take place face-to-face or remotely. Here we can reflect on the work so far and think together about next steps.

Sessions 7 & 8 – Calls with your Practitioner

Two further check-in calls with your Practitioner… and more video clips!

Session 9 – Final Reassessment and Final Summary Report

The final session can also take place face-to-face or remotely. This will be your last scheduled contact session with your Practitioner to conclude the BUSS® work, review progress, and discuss moving forward.

Parent/carer(s) will receive a final summary report – we aim to have these sent out to you within a couple of days. 

Parent’s Group 

Three support groups, led by our Parent Mentors, run every month (except in August) on Zoom. There is a group for parents/carers of children under 6 years, and 2 groups running for parents/carers of children from over 7 years. You are welcome to join these sessions throughout your intervention and will receive an invitation from our team administrator asking you if you’d like to opt in. Click here to watch our Parent Mentors give an introduction to the BUSS® Parent Mentor Groups. They are a great space to share successes and challenges alongside other parents/carers who are also working through the BUSS® intervention.

End of intervention Review

A review meeting will be held with parents/carer(s), the BUSS® Practitioner, Social Worker and / or any other professionals to review the work and think together about future recommendations and next steps.

Typically the intervention is offered over 4 months and for most families this will be as much formal support as they need – they will have made significant progress in building their child’s underdeveloped foundation sensorimotor systems and feel confident enough to continue their hard work independently with some guidance from their BUSS® Practitioner about next steps.

A small number of families, usually where the child has been impacted by fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) or drug use in utero, or where they have complex health needs/disabilities, may need ongoing direct support from our service. In this case we would think with you about helpful next steps.

You can download a PDF summary of a typical BUSS® intervention here.

While every BUSS® intervention will be unique to each child and family, it can be useful to have an idea of what a game might look like, and how it’s graded. We’ve got a big library of videos that Sarah and her daughter Ally have made, to help explain some of the games, which are also integrated into our reports and summaries.

Bubble mountain is a game that Lindsey, one of our earlier Parent Mentors, devised when we were focusing on building oral motor strength in our tactile system work. Alongside this, and in conjunction with other work, we’d been using a graded programme to build core strength and stability to support their child to lie on their tummy, with their body getting the strength and stamina it needed for this from their head, neck, shoulder girdle and trunk. By this stage of the work, they were able to lie on their tummy in a good position for a few minutes. The games they’d been playing to build oral motor strength meant that their child now knew the difference between blowing and sucking, and was able to form a seal with their mouth around a straw. This game was a great way to continue to develop both parts of those foundation sensorimotor systems.

BUSS® Activity: Bubble Mountain!

The interplay of early feeding and communication experiences is critical to a child developing good oral motor strength, without which, the progression to weaning and language development can be compromised. BUSS® tries to break the activity down into its component parts, using games like this to build oral motor strength and to put experiences of fun and nurture alongside earlier feeding experiences, which may perhaps have been more stressful. As you’ll see, it is a short, easy activity that, when it’s used at the right stage of development of a child’s foundation systems, can be fun for parents and children to do together.

 

Examples of a BUSS® Intervention

Click on the circles below to find out more about our work with each of these families

Noah: an early intervention
Elsa: a middle years intervention
Lenny: a middle years intervention
Amber: an intervention in adolescence
Introductory Webinar

Evaluation

All families supported through a BUSS® intervention are invited to complete measures at the beginning and end of our work together. Our experience has been that by the end of the intervention, we see significant improvement in a child’s bodily awareness, core strength and stability, co-ordination and fluidity of movement. These improvements in bodily regulation often facilitate positive changes in emotional regulation, learning and relationships, as can be seen in the testimonies from parents and carers.

We would suggest that building bodily regulation is usually a good starting point for any therapeutic intervention and find that children are often much better able to make use of psychological therapies or attachment interventions once they are better regulated on a bodily level.

We are also working hard to build the evidence base for BUSS® and use anonymised outcome measures to evaluate and consistently improve our offer to families.

 

Other therapeutic support

We appreciate that parenting a child who has experienced developmental trauma can be a great challenge at times as well as bringing great joy. Because the child’s parent/carer is the main agent of change in a BUSS® intervention , this can be hard work if you’re already feeling under extreme pressure. We sometimes find that families  benefit from other help such as therapeutic parenting support alongside or indeed before BUSS®

We would NOT recommend that families begin a BUSS® intervention alongside dyadic interventions such as Theraplay® or individual interventions for children such as art or play therapy. We would either ask for that work to be put on hold so we could do BUSS® or delay starting BUSS® until after the other therapeutic support has finished.

You can get in contact with us by emailing info@bussmodel.org to discuss any other requests or needs.


What People Have Said

Here is the link to a blog post from a family who have just worked through the BUSS® programme. The post gives a lovely insight into how to integrate games into daily life, the value of Parent Mentor groups and the changes they’ve seen in their family.

Follow this link to read more:

https://www.timetobedad.co.uk/post/from-walking-to-our-first-jump-with-buss-model

Feedback from parents who have been through the BUSS® Model:

“We would recommend BUSS® to everyone with an adopted child. It is hands down the most helpful therapy we have had for our daughter.”

Adoptive Parent

“We had amazing support from everyone involved, definitely the nicest team of people. The transformation was incredible in such a small time. I can't believe all the extra bonuses we have got in our life from it, like closer connection.”

Adoptive Parent

"Seeing my child make so much progress in such little time really amazed me."

Special Guardian

“We were struggling to understand how this physical work could help her emotionally, but the improvement so far has been remarkable. We have noticed that her reactions to unexpected situations are much more measured, school has fed back that she is calmer when she is there and that they can reason with her much more easily, she seems to be able to stay in the moment a little longer and generally seems less angry and frustrated all round.”

Adoptive Parent

“The Parent Mentors were great and hosted really well. It was really helpful and encouraging to hear from them and from the other parents on the BUSS® journey. I gained some interesting ideas and insights through the group.”

Adoptive Parent

“For her to feel comfortable walking down the stairs without being afraid was the biggest accomplishment I can think of, and in a very short space of time. I would definitely highly recommend this work; an essential understanding of what has been missed or gotten stuck and how it affects the body.”

Adoptive Parent

"Taking part in BUSS® has given us many things... building a relationship with our daughter, having fun with her and being able to find activities that were accessible and fun, and seeing her develop. Watching her feel proud of herself, knowing her hard work on the BUSS® activities was having an impact on her skills, development and happiness. There is no doubt that BUSS® has absolutely changed the course of our daughter's life. We never thought she would be able to live independently and now, although there are many skills missing, she has the ability to learn them."

Adoptive Parent

“It’s amazing that something that’s so completely life changing can be so much fun!”

Foster Carer

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