Non-Violent Resistance Packages

NVR Open Course 4: Tuesday 20th January to Tuesday 17th March 2026 excluding half term. 8-9.10pm, plus 3, 1-to-1 sessions at a time to suit

NVR Open Course 5: Wednesday 21st January to Wednesday 18th March 2026 excluding half term. 12-1.10pm, plus 3, 1-to-1 sessions at a time to suit

A flyer is available here for you to download and circulate to your families.

Download the referral form here and return it to: mail@adoptionacademy.co.uk Please feel free to call first, to discuss your family: 07392 745790.

You held everyone’s attention well and I felt everyone was left in an energised and positive way. It helped that you were offering practical ways forward, as well as greater understanding.

We can provide a bespoke programme exclusively for your families or you can refer one family (using the referral form above) to our open course provided three times a year starting in January, May and September, one of which is held in evenings.

(can be funded by the ASGSF) and comprises:

• An interactive group-based NVR training via Zoom, including knowledge sharing, breakout rooms for small groupwork, Q and A’s, advice, case studies, videos, problem solving and support
• A 38 page workbook and a booklet on NVR
• An option to run a one-hour evening webinar for supporters to learn how they can best support the family they are concerned about (a key aspect of NVR)
• A video about NVR to circulate to supporters
• 3 one-hour NVR private therapy sessions for each family which both parents must attend at a time to suit, to drill down into the most effective use and application of NVR in the family
• A 12 unit Hostility to Harmony™ E-Course on NVR for each family; especially valuable for partners not attending the group work to ensure consistency between parents. Also valuable if someone misses a session
• Provision of Zoom
• A complete package of support to complement the programme

Our complete package of support to complement the programme includes:

• An optional webinar for prospective families to have their questions answered and to start to develop rapport
• WhatsApp group for peer-to-peer support
• Option to join the Hostility to Harmony™ E-Course Facebook support group
• A further 15 months access to the Hostility to Harmony™ E-Course to refresh, review and revise knowledge.

Maximum number of participants:

10 families and no more than 16 participants

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Easier than I had thought, with the new website!

Our NVR therapy is designed to increase the resilience of parents and carers struggling with the challenges of parenting a child with trauma, to create harmony at home, whilst developing new tools to help the child to change their challenging behaviour including:

• Reactive, angry outbursts
• Demanding
• Controlling
• Manipulative
• Aggression or violence
• Threatening
• Defiance and opposition
• Sense of entitlement
• Extreme sibling rivalry
• Lying and stealing

Non-Violent resistance is an evidence-based approach that can reduce and even eradicate such behaviours whilst improving the stability within the home, how the parent feels and their parental presence. Provision helps families to:

• De-escalate conflict during emotionally charged incidents
• Prioritise problematic behaviour 
• Break the ‘seal of silence’, overcoming isolation and developing support networks within family/community
• Raising presence and being a stabilising influence
• Repairing the parent-child relationship through reconciliation gestures, repair and relationship based play
• Desisting in engaging with the behaviour to disrupt the learnt and patterned negative behaviour of the child
• Ensure extreme self-care, practice self -regulation and meet own needs
• Develop rapport and reflective forms of communication including non-verbal
• Discipline and natural consequences 
• Apply NVR principles in a trauma informed manner
• Managing the teenage years
• Making technology safer

It is not possible to put all the principles in place in one go, it may take several months and it requires a high level of commitment from the caregiver to stick with the programme. For some the principles will be challenging. The results and rewards however can be immense and effect lasting change for the child, their behaviour and the family dynamic.

“16 weeks ago, our household was a battleground. Emotions were mostly negative, and we found ourselves in a downward spiral of disaster heading towards a family break up. Now, with the tools we have learnt along the way, we are in a much better place. We are now able to handle most situations that may arise, by applying the principles of NVR through a well constructed and delivered package.” – An Adoptive Father

Having been a foster carer for two years, Gill became a single adopter in 2011 to a highly traumatised boy with a complex attachment disorder. The family received a lot of assistance and therapy including DDP, but it was Non-Violent Resistance that turned things around. Gill was so convinced by the therapy that she trained in it professionally. Her lived experience of child to parent violence, attachment disorder and blocked care, provides her with a unique empathy and understanding for other parents and carers.

Professional background

Gill has a background in community development, twenty years teaching stress management to industry and ten years owning Adoption Academy, providing resilience programmes and NVR. She is a qualified teacher of adults and an accomplished trainer and conference presenter.

Gill Tree was the keynote speaker at Adopt SouthWest’s fourth conference and delivered an inspirational and engaging presentation titled ‘From Hostility to Harmony – changing a child’s challenging behaviour.’

Gill weaved her own experience as an adoptive parent and her professional expertise to explain child to parent violence and offered up positive non-shaming strategies under the umbrella model of NVR. There has been a significant increase in families approaching Adopt SouthWest for support to help with challenging behaviour and child-to-parent violence with a particular demand for Gill.

Abraham O’Brien, Service Manager, Adopt SouthWest – November 2022

See Gill’s CV