Relational practice is about helping people feel safe, connected and understood, allowing them to do their best, most creative thinking and provide the highest quality care. This is how we will improve the experiences and outcomes of babies, children and families.
We live in an increasingly complex and connected world. At the same time, people and communities are becoming more emotionally disconnected from each other. Where there is a focus on task and technology before relationship, we all pay the price in mental, physical and spiritual wellbeing.​
There has never been a more pressing time to embed compassionate, relationally focused practice at all levels of our health and social care systems, especially across maternity, neonatal and perinatal services.
About The Relational Practice
Who we are
The Relational Practice is a collaboration between Ruth Butterworth and Davy Evans.
​We are experienced Clinical Psychologists with a passion for supporting individuals, families, professionals and organisations.
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Between us we have three decades of experience working in the NHS and have led psychological services in neonatal, perinatal and paediatric care. In recent years, we have been leading the development of psychological support in neonatal care across England.
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Our purpose with The Relational Practice is to facilitate change across maternity, neonatal, perinatal and paediatric care by promoting safeness, connection, dialogue, and mutual understanding.​​
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We draw on the research literature for ‘what matters’ while taking a creative and playful approach to application. Relational practice starts with our relationship with you – joining you where you are, imagining together where you could be and identifying the steps that will lead you there.
​We look forward to working with you to help you to create the change that you’re looking for.
The theory bit
We care that our work is grounded in coherence, pragmatism and sound evidence from research and practice. Drawing on a broad evidence base for what contributes to safe and quality healthcare, we integrate across diverse relational approaches and methods including trauma-informed care, attachment theory, mentalisation based treatment for families, the compassionate mind approach and social mentality theory, non-violent resistance, systemic practice and psychodynamic thinking.
Meet the team
Dr Davy Evans
Hi, I'm Davy. Since qualifying as a clinical psychologist in 2016, most of my work has been in NHS services for children and family physical and mental health. I specialise in supporting compassionate, mind-minded relationships in hospital-based healthcare: between parents and children, families and teams, and within staff groups and wider cultures of care. In recent years my work has focused on neonatal care. I set up a psychology service in a large neonatal intensive care unit and was the lead psychologist for a regional neonatal network. I conduct clinical research, contribute to national frameworks and standards of practice, and lead a growing national community of neonatal psychological professionals. I am an internationally invited speaker and have consulted to NHS England in the field of neonatal care. I take great pleasure and pride in shaping psychologically informed neonatal care in the UK. Now, alongside The Relational Practice, I work as a consultant clinical psychologist in a hospital-based family health psychology service. Here I continue my commitment to relationally focused practice.
Dr Ruth Butterworth
Hi, I’m Ruth. I qualified as a clinical psychologist in 2004 and have worked in a range of NHS and academic settings since that time, specialising in work with families in the perinatal and early years period as they navigate all the joy and the struggle that becoming a family can bring. In more recent years, I have been working primarily at a strategic level with neonatal, maternity and perinatal/infant mental health systems to explore what relational, psychologically informed care looks like in this context. Alongside The Relational Practice I am currently the lead psychologist in a regional NHS neonatal network, supporting the development of neonatal psychological practice across a regional and national footprint. I thrive on the opportunity to work at all levels of the system – from the care of individual babies and families right through to shaping national policy and frameworks of care.
An important shift when understanding problems and solutions in systems: from a focus on individuals to a focus on relationships.
Our values
The Relational Practice's logo speaks to all the things we care about in relationships, including our own.
We met in 2013, when Ruth was supervising Davy's research for his clinical doctorate, studying the role of classroom relationships in teacher stress. We stayed in touch and worked together again as co-founders of the Neonatal Leads for Psychological Practice in England. Through our connection we have rediscovered a shared set of personal and professional values and, importantly, become close friends. Our logo aims to capture what we care about:
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The pattern between. That which keeps us stuck and frees us up happens between people.
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Connection. The creativity, joy and safeness that come when people connect with each other.
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Compassion. The ways we can hold space for each other.
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Collaboration. The importance of working together with a shared purpose.
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Curiosity. Our openness to different perspectives and our commitment to the "messy middle."
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Play. Allowing playfulness opens up creativity and new, safe ways to solve problems.
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Pragmatism. A commitment to turning concepts and ideas into something tangiable.
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Acceptance. We do the best we can with what we have got.
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Courage. Our compassion is anchored in courage and commitment.​​
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If you would like to introduce some of these ideas into your practice or team, please get in touch.
