Understanding Attachment

Training courses for foster carers

More and more children are failing to develop secure attachments to loving, protective caregivers. These children are left without the most important foundation for healthy development. Research has shown that up to 80% of high-risk families create severe attachment disorders in their children. This foster care training course in attachment will teach participants how to approach and support children struggling with attachment issues.

The attachment between a parent and child is a special enduring form of emotional relationship between the two. For many looked after children this emotional attachment is extremely difficult for them to form due to a lack of care and love in their previous relationships. Attachment training is a very important part of foster care training due to the significance that it has within child development. The early relationships that children have with their immediate caregivers help develop a ‘sense of self. These relationships will go on to have a profound effect on socio-emotional development, personality development and social competence. A person’s capacity to love and experience a host of other healthy characteristics are related to their core attachment capabilities.

This course will give participants a good understanding of the bonding process and the importance of attachment in child development, highlighting how looked-after children may struggle with such feelings due to negative experiences earlier in their lives. We show foster carers how to identify behaviours that highlight insecure attachments in their looked-after children, while also providing a description of the contributing factors. These insecure attachments can lead to problems later in life such as difficulty regulating emotions and avoiding emotional connections. Therefore, it is vitally important that foster carers are aware of the signs that this is the case. Participants will be taught how they can support children in increasing core attachment capabilities by tailoring the way they communicate and act towards attachment-resistant children. Finally, there is a discussion on how foster carers can effectively take care of themselves in these emotionally draining situations.

An experienced trainer will present the session with the support of case studies and group discussions. This course meets the requirements of the Training, Support and Development Standards for foster care:

• Standard 3: 3.4b
• Standard 5: 5.1(a, b, c), 5.6c
• Standard 6: 6.3b
• Standard 7: 7.3(d, e)