Attachment awareness

Attachment awareness interventions may be suitable for parents, carers and professionals who:

• Want to help a young person feel comfortable
• Want to increase and expand their understanding of attachment
• Have or work with adopted children
• Work with refugees or asylum seekers

Attachment awareness interventions may also be a suitable option for those who:

• Have a looked after status or have been adopted
• Have experienced a loss of a parent or carer
• Have a parent with a serious illness
• Show clingy or avoidant behaviour

If you would like more information about how an attachment awareness intervention can have benefits for you and people around you, please contact us for more information.

What are the benefits of attachment awareness?

Attachment awareness interventionsbring many benefits for the child, young person or parent, carer, including:

• An increased understanding of attachment and how it can affect children and young people 
• Being able to support an individual that is uncomfortable in a new environment due to attachment needs
• Increased confidence in working with adopted children and young people
• Increased feelings of security in the child or young person
• Improved relationships between foster and adopted parents and a child or young person

Followingan attachment awareness intervention, recommendations for supporting the individual will be provided.

What happens prior to an attachment awareness intervention?

An attachment awareness intervention can be delivered after an initial discussion with us, please see the outline of the process we follow below.

What happens during an attachment awareness intervention?

During an attachment awareness intervention, the individual will learn about attachment, and how it is important for children and young people. The individual will then discuss how this can be applied to their own situation in order to support the child involved. The HSR Psychology professional may carry out observations of the child or young person involved, or provide family sessions which can take place at home. Following observations, the HSR Psychology professional can highlight behaviours which may be caused by attachment needs and provide advice and guidance on how to best support those needs.

An attachment awareness intervention can take place directly with the child or young person, and in this case would look at a child or young person’s attachments to people around them. The children and young people will be taught about attachment in an age-appropriate way to help them to better understand themselves and their relationships. 

What happens after an attachment awareness intervention?

After an attachment awareness intervention the young individual will be able to use strategies tailored to them for supporting attachment. Following an attachment awareness intervention it may be recommended that we carry out a follow-up session. Outcomes from an attachment awareness intervention can explained in a written report or through a feedback session. Follow up support is offered to you along with support during the whole process of an intervention.

Does an attachment awareness intervention come with a report?

Following an intervention, we recommend a report which outlines what happened, how we have impacted the individual and our recommendations going forward. We can offer a comprehensive report after an attachment awareness intervention highlighting how attachment can impact the individual in everyday activities. Reasons for requesting an attachment awareness vary. Verbal feedback along with a brief summary can be provided if you don’t need a written report.

How an attachment awareness intervention helped foster carers

An adoption agency found that a number of their placements were breaking down due to misunderstandings of attachment needs. We provided attachment awareness training to their foster carers to reduce the number of placement breakdowns. Find out how we helped.

A local adoption agency came to HSR Psychology for support for their foster carers. They wanted their foster carers to have more awareness about attachment difficulties in children as these difficulties are common in foster children. The adoption agency requested training sessions for their foster carers in relation to attachment needs in children. The agency hoped this would reduce the amount of placement breakdowns due to misunderstandings.

Our clinical psychologist provided 5 training sessions and 3 drop-in workshops aimed around: identifying attachment difficulties in children, working with schools in regards to the foster child(ren), setting individual targets and providing therapeutic care for the child(ren).

Following our involvement, 100% of foster carers said that they felt very supported and equipped to tackle any attachment difficulties which a foster child may have. During our involvement there was a reduction in serious incidents as foster carers were applying their new knowledge of attachment to their own situations to support children and young people