About Us

Sensory Connections is based in Exeter, Devon and primarily operates in the South West of England.

Sensory Connections provides specialist therapeutic services for adoptive, foster, and birth families and carers, as well as training, supervision, and consultancy services for professionals working in the field of trauma, adoption, fostering and permanency.

Chris West – Consultant Occupational Therapist

Chris has extensive clinical experience working with children, young people, families, and professionals in the statutory and independent sectors. She has been working with parents and carers and their children for over 30 years, providing services to them, and to Regional Adoption Agencies, Special Guardians, Fostering Agencies, Residential Homes, including Secure Care, and Schools.

Chris is a HCPC registered occupational therapist, with over 30 years experience of working with children and young people with a range of needs, including child and adolescent mental health, children who have experienced early trauma, and have sensory integration and attachment difficulties, and children with special needs. She has a specialism in working with children and young people who have sensory integration and attachment difficulties as a result of developmental trauma, and offers consultation, individual parent-child assessment and therapeutic intervention, and group intervention strategies for children who have challenges with regulation of arousal states, which affects their ability to engage with others, and in everyday activities such as sleeping, eating, playing, and school.

Chris is passionate about supporting children who have experienced developmental trauma to develop enhanced co-regulation and self-regulation, and to work alongside those caring for and working with them to develop a greater understanding of how to support them in relation to this, to support increased enjoyment and engagement in everyday activities.

Services provided:

• Assessment and intervention services

• Adoption support and therapy for parents, children, and couples
• Training for adopters and permanent carers
• Adoption support programmes for groups and individuals
• Supervision and consultation to professionals and carers, including residential care homes
• Schools training