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SA²F²E: A Systemic, Relational Framework for Healing-Centred Care
❝ Care doesn’t heal in isolation. It heals in relationships.❞
The SA²F²E model was developed by Pei-I Yang in response to a gap in existing trauma-informed approaches — where the focus often stops at the child, and leaves out the adults, the system, and the wider emotional context.
This model equips teams to stop asking:
“How do we manage behaviour?”
…and start asking:
“How are we shaping the system that holds this child’s distress?”
What Does SA²F²E Stand For?
Each letter represents a core element of relational healing. The model explores these from two angles:
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How the child experiences them
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How the adult holds and expresses them
S – Security
“We need to feel safe before we can heal.”
This includes emotional, relational, and physical safety. For practitioners, it means becoming a source of safety — not just enforcing it.
A¹ – Affection Involvement
“Connection is more than care — it’s how care is offered.
This pillar explores warmth, emotional presence, and attuned responses. It invites staff to reflect on how they offer closeness and co-regulation.
A² – Acceptance
“All behaviour is communication — but are we truly listening?”
Acceptance means holding space for the young person’s identity and emotional world without blame. It teaches radical compassion with boundaries.
F² – Family System & Family Functioning
“Every child brings a system with them — even if their family isn’t in the room.”
This pillar focuses on family patterns, intergenerational dynamics, and cultural scripts — and how adults can hold those stories with respect, not resistance.
E – Emotions
“When a child can name their pain, they don’t need to act it out.”
This is about emotional literacy, shared language, and identity-safe spaces. It invites practitioners to model, teach, and co-regulate emotional expression.
How Is SA²F²E Used in Practice?
The SA²F²E model isn’t a checklist.
It’s a relational stance — a way of seeing, responding, and reflecting.
Practitioners use it to:
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Slow down before reacting
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Reflect on their own lived experiences, values, bias, beliefs emotional stance and power
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Make sense of the child’s relational patterns
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Embed healing into daily routines — not just “key moments”
Where It’s Used:
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Staff training and team development
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Reflective supervision
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Case mapping and relational planning
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Family work, team debriefs, and leadership coaching
What is SA²F²E Model
The SA²F²E Model is a trauma-informed, systemically grounded relational framework designed to support care-experienced children, young people, and the adults and teams who care for them.
Built on the foundations of family systems theory, the model integrates six interdependent pillars — Security, Affection Involvement, Acceptance, Family System and Functioning, and Emotions — to explore how safety, connection, and healing are co-constructed across relationships.
SA²F²E invites practitioners to look beyond behaviour and into the stories, systems, and emotional postures shaping each moment of care. It draws from clinical family therapy, developmental psychology, trauma theory, child and adolescent mental health, attachment science and psychoanalytic practice.
Designed for use across therapeutic interventions, residential care, multi-agency collaboration, and workforce development, SA²F²E provides an accessible yet robust roadmap for:
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Restoring relational trust
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Supporting practitioner reflexivity
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And embedding everyday healing into emotionally complex systems