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| Family Futures have developed
a Multi-Treatment Approach to helping children
with attachment difficulties and their parents. |
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| UNLOCKING
THE PAST |
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A Multi-Treatment Approach
The primary task of parents today who foster, adopt or are caring for children with attachment difficulties, is to help the child recover from their early experiences and to form positive attachments. This often presents a considerable challenge for child and parent.
The child's early experience of relationships may have involved illness, separation, loss, neglect, abuse or multiple carers. This makes it hard for such children to trust and to relinquish control. They bring with them patterns of behaviour that may have been adaptive and enabled them to survive in the past, but are inappropriate in the context of a caring family. Contact arrangements, if not properly planned and supported, can add to the complexity of forming new attachments for everyone.
Many parents have found that conventional approaches to helping their families are inadequate and lack an understanding of the particular issues that fostering, adoption, step-parenting or parenting a child with attachment difficulties raises. Family Futures have developed an approach to helping such children and their parents or carers cope with these complexities. An integrated multi-disciplinary treatment approach is required.
| OUR APPROACH |
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This is based on the following principles:
- That a new family is the most important resource a child
has, and all therapeutic work should seek to build and strengthen
the family relationships
- The traumatic effects of a child's early experiences remain
unexplored and inaccessible to them. As a consequence,
they defend themselves against painful feelings and act out
experiences that they are unable to understand or verbalise
- That change is possible if parents and children are helped
to work together to understand their pasts and form positive
attachments in the present
- The role of the therapeutic team is to facilitate this
process and provide on-going support.
- Therapeutic help for families who foster or adopt children
with attachment problems needs to be intensive and long term.
| THE AIM
OF THE PROGRAMME |
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- To address directly and change the child's attachment patterns
- To incorporate a holistic approach which integrates all
treatment approaches: psychological, psychiatric, neurobiological,
educational, dietary and paediatric
- To increase parents' and carers confidence and parenting skills
- To incorporate the extended family and professional support
in maintaining positive changes
- To provide ongoing support to the family, as appropriate
| THE KEY
AREAS COVERED BY THE PROGRAMME |
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Overall, the Attachment Programme is designed to address the
complexity of contemporary placements. In order to do this,
the programme has eight essential elements which are dealt with simultaneously,
these are:
- The child's early history and patterns of attachment
- The parents' relationship as a couple and their expectations
of themselves and of each other as parents. For single
parents and carers: the impact of current or previous relationships.
- Contact with birth relatives and siblings
- The current behaviour difficulties displayed by the child
at home and/or at school
- The parenting strategies used by the parents to deal with
the above difficulties
- Patterns of interaction and communication as a family.
- The neuro-physiological, medical-psychological and educational
impact of early trauma, which are dealt with holistically
- The management of the wider family-support network, including
the extended family members, schools, social services and
significant others
- Our multi-disciplinary team can provide psychological, psychiatric, educational and paediatric assessments and consultations
In our experience, in order to achieve any significant change
in children and families coping with the complex issues encompassed
by adoptive or foster family life, the complexity has to be acknowledged
and all eight elements need to be addressed. This may require
a concerted and intensive period of intervention, involving
family members, for up to five days. With this approach, it is
possible to achieve a sufficient momentum for change to reverse
the negative spiral in which many families in crisis find themselves.
Ideally, families should participate in the programme during
the first year of a permanent placement. However we can also
work with children in short-term placements, to prepare them
for a new family and also with families who have been formed
many years prior to referral.
The follow-up programme is designed to maintain and build upon the positives gained during the intensive week. Our standard follow-up is a tailor-made programme of at least two years' duration which will include Theraplay, sensory integration therapy programmes, intensive parent mentoring and school based interventions, alongside therapeutic family based work.
Family Futures do not use therapist holding of children or other intrusive forms of therapy.
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ARTICLE
Working with the Elephant in the Room
By Alan Burnell & Jay Vaughan
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