Story Stem Assessment Profile Training

"Teachers were enthusiastic and engaging, and I like the changing between online teaching and breakout rooms. Interesting material." Participant, January 2024

"I liked the structure of teaching - the mix between introductions and 'do it yourself' in groups. Perfectly balanced I find. And the well-prepared teachers were an absolute pleasure." Participant, January 2024

"The days with the coding were very dynamic and made the SSAP very clear/easier to understand." Participant, January 2024

This training will take place using a blended learning approach and consists of live Zoom sessions and self-guided learning e.g. watching pre-recorded videos, practice administration and coding.

The online platform, Zoom will be used to deliver online training. Prior to booking, please ensure you meet the system requirements so you can join this training session, to test your equipment visit Zoom.us/test and follow the instructions.

Attendees will be supplied with hard copies of the slides and manuals via post if they book 14 days before the training is due to commence. Materials will be also be emailed to those who make a late booking or who are based overseas in case the material has not reached them by the start of the course’

Please note this is separate from the SSAP Kit list. You will need to source the items on Kit list yourself.

Please note you are required to bring a set of SSAP materials with you to the training. For the full list of materials please see SSAP Kit List.

It is important that all characters, animals and props are in scale with other another. Please gather as many object as you can from the list but don't worry if you don't manage to get everything. The Kit will be discussed during the first day of the training and you will be advised if all your props are appropriate.

Certification of competency involves the demonstration of competence and aptitude in two areas of usage of the Story Stem Assessment Profile training. Certification of competency enables you to have the backing that you are competent and reliable in using the tool. For those working clinically and/or involved in producing reports in court proceedings, it is critical that you have this backing of being a reliable user of the SSAP. In order to receive the certification of competency you will be asked to:

• Send in a video of yourself (with accompanying transcript) carrying out a full set of the 13 SSAP stories.

• Code two transcripts of 13 stories each.

If you are successful in reaching the necessary standards, you will receive a certification of competency alongside feedback. Certification is at no extra cost and is included in the training fee. If you have not completed SSAP Certification of Competency within three years, you must attend a refresher day before continuing with the Certification process. 

The SSAP training and associated materials were developed in collaboration with Great Ormond Street Hospital. The SSAP is copyright of Anna Freud. At present, the only way to be trained in the administration, coding and application of SSAP and to receive Certification of competency to use the measure is through the Anna Freud's training and certification process.

Following the training you will have the option of joining your local Regional Group Hub. These are regions both in and outside the UK where practitioners can both support one another with SSAP-related issues as well as call upon Anna Freud to provide support in a number of different forms including bespoke training/supervision. These hubs allow SSAP practitioners to connect with others in their area for support, peer supervision, and options for coworking, bespoke trainings, research/ evaluation, planning referral pathways and consultation from our Anna Freud SSAP trainers. Though we won’t be taking a lead role in how these regional hubs operate, we will be able to support you if needed, whilst also informing you of new resources/research papers and opportunities.

If you are accredited on the SSAP training and are working outside the UK and wish to deliver the Anna Freud SSAP training, including in languages other than English, you may wish to become a licensed trainer. As part of this, a contractual accreditation agreement would be set up which would permit the delivery of the SSAP.

Anna Freud is establishing an international network of individually Approved Training Providers, to deliver SSAP training on a commercial basis under license. The Centre will act as the hub by helping support and coordinate contact and learning collaboration activities amongst the network of Approved Training Providers.

As part of the process to become a fully accredited training provider, you would need to complete further steps towards a fuller accreditation which would include a further assessment of your delivery of the SSAP, a further level of coding reliability and the opportunity to shadow one of our trainings. Following these procedures, you would be allowed access to all our materials including the training content manual (coding manual, protocol) and other resources (including videos/transcripts used on trainings and in reliability) used to deliver SSAP training, which remain copyright of the Anna Freud Centre. We will authorize the translations of all our materials.

The initial accreditation fee of £2000 would cover the steps to become a fully accredited licensee, following which an annual accreditation fee of £500 would cover 6 hours of supervision from one of our team and a 10% fee from any trainings that are run.

The SSAP team at Anna Freud are also able to support you with your learning and use of the SSAP. We offer individual supervision (£150 per hour). We also offer independent coding of assessments. With the SSAP, if a transcript and video are provided, we charge £100 which would include a full coding and short report. With the adolescent story stem (ASSP), we offer a report charged at £60.

For anyone who requires a one day refresher training, we offer these two times per year and would provide a revision of all aspects of the four day training as well as offer an opportunity for you to bring along your own material.

The SSAP has been used in a number of different research studies. The most significant study was the Adoption and Attachment Study. This was a longitudinal study which took place at the Anna Freud, in collaboration with Coram and the Great Ormond Street. It initially comprised of 111 children coming from two distinct subsamples: a LP/maltreated group and an EP/non-maltreated group. The study included three phases; in the first phase, aiming to assess changes in attachment representations, adopted children (aged 4-9) were assessed right after placement as well as one and two years later. In the second phase, the adoptees were followed-up and assessed in latency/early adolescence (aged 12- 14, and then in early adulthood (aged late 20s). The following papers below include ones that used the SSAP. Papers have also emerged from research carried out at Five Rivers, an independent fostering agency where the SSAP has been one of the assessment tools.

SSAP articles

• Hillman, S., Lajmi, N., Steele, H., Hodges, J., Simmons, J. & Kaniuk, J. (2024) Predictors of Attachment in Early- and Late-placed Adoptees. Adoption & Fostering, July 2024.

• Steele, M., Hodges , J., Hillman, S., Kaniuk, J. (2024) Antidote to Developmental Trauma: A Report on Findings from the “Adoption and Attachment Representations” Study, The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 77:1, 60-81, DOI: 10.1080/00797308.2023.2279407

• Hillman, S., Lajmi, N., Steele, M., Hodges, J., Simmonds, J., & Kaniuk, J. (2023). Sibling Co-placement as a Protective Factor: A Mixed Method Study on the Impact of Sibling Placement on Adolescent Adoptees’ Emotional and Behavioral Development. Adoption Quarterly, 1-35.

• Hillman, S., Villegas, C., Anderson, K., Kerr-Davis, A., & Cross, R. (2022). Internal representations of attachment in Story Stems: changes in the narratives of foster care children. Journal of Child Psychotherapy, 1-29.

• Mackin, J., Hillman, S., Cross, R., & Anderson, K. (2022). The Internal Worlds of Sexually Abused Looked-After Children. The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 75(1), 278-298.

• Martin, H., Hillman, S., Cross, R., & Anderson, K. (2022). The Manifestations and Correlates of Dissociation amongst Looked-After Children in Middle Childhood. European Journal of Trauma & Dissociation, 6(1), 100232.

• Hillman, S., Hodges, J., Steele, M., Cirasola, A., Asquith, K., & Kaniuk, J. (2020). Assessing changes in the internal worlds of early- and late-adopted children using the Story Stem Assessment Profile (SSAP). Adoption and Fostering, 2020.

• Hillman, S., Cross, R., & Anderson, K. (2020). Exploring attachment and internal representations in looked-after children. Frontiers in Psychology, March 2020, 1-10.

• Steele, M., Henderson, K., Hodges, J., Kaniuk, J., Hillman, S., & Steele, H. (2018). In the best interests of the late-placed child: A report from the attachment representations and adoption outcome study. In Developmental Science and Psychoanalysis (pp 159-191). Routledge.

We offer bespoke SSAP training packages for groups of colleagues from different organisations and workplaces. This allows delegates to experience all the benefits of our very thorough training, with the added advantage of team members being able to work together after the training to support launching and using SSAP in their workplace. We have trained teams from many organsiations, as far afield as Estonia, Australia and Denmark! These trainings can be arranged as face-to-face, online, or a mixture of the two, and will offer over two long and two short training days. For those wanting a service or team trained up, this option provides a 10% discount per delegate as long as a minimum of 12 individual are registered for the training.

Additional services such as post-training clinical consultation and refresher days can be added into the package. Please contact saul.hillman@annafreud.org for a preliminary discussion.

We are now offering trainings in the use, coding and application of the ASSP. This is an online, video-based measure adapted for use with adolescents from the Story Stem Assessment Profile (SSAP; Hodges & Hillman, 2007), which has been used successfully with younger children. The Anna Freud has been training practitioners in the UK and elsewhere in the SSAP for over 20 years and it is extensively used in clinical practice, assessment and research. The ASSP involves a young person (aged 12 to 16 years) watching six short, animated narrative stems, each containing conflicts and scenarios that are expected to be familiar to this age group, which are then followed by a series of multiple choice questions which ask the young person to think about how the characters in the scenarios might behave, think and feel. The measure is expected to capture something about the young person’s expectations and internal world. The young person completes this online where the videos, measure and data is situated within a secure and encrypted online platform. The young person’s responses to the six scenarios are coded on a number of different facets including affective congruence, mentalization capacity, attachment to peers, and awareness of parental figures. The training will cover the background and context to the measure, its administration, its coding, its interpretation and clinical applicability. The training will be online and be run as a half-day induction with accreditation included within the costing.

Upon booking, you will be asked to confirm that you have read and accept our terms and conditions and our privacy notice. Please read these documents before booking:

• Terms and conditions

• Privacy notice