Our Team

Karen Wallace - Adapt Scotland A white woman with long blonde hair smiling at the camera Karen Wallace has over 20 years experience in the field of working with children and young people and is one of the Founders of ADAPT Scotland. Her knowledge base and skills have come from her experiences of working as an educational worker, residential worker, social worker and as a foster carer.

In her role as a foster carer, she has supported children and young people with major trauma and neglect, within her family setting.  Karen has also worked with children and young people in the community, befriending and also undertaking outreach work with children and their families to try and prevent children from being received into the care system.

Karen also has three birth children on whom she can hone her parent mentoring skills.  Karen has an Honours Degree in Psychology & Sociology (1998) and completed her BA in Social Work in 2006. Karen’s passion for Dyadic Developmental Practice (DDP) was born in 2005 when she participated in DDP training through her Fostering Agency. This, in turn, inspired her to train with Dr Daniel Hughes, an eminent DDP practitioner. Karen also recently undertook Theraplay® training, which compliments her existing knowledge base and provides her with further strategies to support parents/carers.Karen has worked alongside Christine from 2012 to 2020, as a Parent Mentor and as Co-Director of ADAPT Scotland.  Her role involves supporting adoptive and permanent families with strategies in developmental re-parenting to minimise disruptions and bring joy back to family relationships.

Karen’s motivation to become a foster carer came from a belief that families are central to promoting children’s emotional development and growth and to help them to repair from the trauma they experienced in their early years.  She is passionate about the support she provides to adoptive and long-term foster carers; she is aware of how trauma impacts on both children and their parents/carers especially if they are not adequately supported and encouraged to look after themselves.

Karen enjoys travelling throughout Scotland using her family membership passes with the National Trust and Historic Scotland.  Foreign family holidays and short breaks are also a way of relaxing and spending quality time with family and friends.  She is also a keen reader and an active member of a local book club.

Kellie Glizean - Adapt Scotland A white woman with long hair is smiling at the camera

Kellie Gilzean has over 13 years of experience working with children and young people through her role in the education. In the last 8 years she has been working for the Additional Support for Learning Service, advising and supporting schools with strategies, delivering training and 1:1 work with children and young people who present with a variety of additional support needs.

Kellie is committed in her role supporting children and young people who have experienced trauma. Her extensive knowledge and skill set working in this area has come from hands on experience working in education settings, befriending outreach supports, working alongside Kinship, Foster, Adoptive families and as a Specialist Foster Carer.

Kellie is passionate about the great outdoors and animals. She saw first hand the need to offer alternatives to the formal classroom experiences so she worked with a teamto pilot a council-run Forest School in Edinburgh for care experienced children which continues to grow and supports many pupils across the region.  In addition to this Kellie and her business partner run a Forest school for children with ASN throughout the holiday and term time.

Kellie loves animals and sees them being a highly therapeutic tool for many children and young people. She has 2 beautiful Labrador’s who regularly attend forest school and who are a huge support to many children. Kellie also has her own horses which she has used to support young people at times too.

Kellie has 3 wonderful sons, with the two youngest still at home. Her passion for Dyadic Developmental Parenting began during her time as a specialist foster carer and after working with Karen, her DDP journey began. For Kellie, therapeutic parenting made sense and became ingrained into both her parenting and work life. She went on to train with Daniel Hughes in Dyadic Developmental Practice Level 1 and 2.

Kellie has SQV qualifications in Child Development and Health, Forest Leader, and is Nurture Network trained. She has also undertook many in-house training sessions through Education and Social Work covering all aspects of additional needs and supports.

In her spare time she enjoys being by the coast as much as possible, paddle boarding and spending time with her children, dogs and horses.