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SA³F²E: A Systemic, Relational Framework for Healing-Centred Care
❝ Care doesn’t heal in isolation. It heals in relationships.❞
The SA³F²E Framework 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 is SA³F²E Framework?
The SA³F²E Framework is a 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 psychotherapy 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.
SA³F²E 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, SA³F²E provides an accessible yet robust roadmap for:
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Restoring relational trust
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Supporting practitioner reflexivity not just reflectivity
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And embedding everyday healing into emotionally complex systems
What Does SA³F²E Stand For?
This model offers a systemic lens on six core experiences — Security, Affection Involvement, Acceptance, Family System & Functioning, and Emotions — and explores how each one is viewed, experienced, held, and expressed by:
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💬 The child — what they need and how they communicate it
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🧑🤝🧑 The practitioner — how they offer it in practice
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🏢 The organisation — how it is reinforced or disrupted in culture and policy
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🌍 The wider system — including families, schools, and services
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 – Acknowledgement
Acknowledging means naming the reality of a child’s experience without minimising it, fixing it, or explaining it away. It is recognising loss, pain, rejection, and confusion as real and impactful, and letting the child know: What you’ve been through matters, instead of waiting for them to talk about it in therapy.
A³ - Allowing
Allowing means giving a child permission to be who they are in this moment — emotionally, developmentally, and relationally — without constant correction or control. It is creating space for feelings, reactions, and expressions to exist safely, even when they are messy, intense, or uncomfortable.
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 SA³F²E Used in Practice?
The SA³F²E Framework isn’t a checklist.
It’s a relational stance — a way of seeing, responding and reflecting using reflexivity.
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 and not limited to:
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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