The Secure Base Model: promoting attachment and resilience

Attachment, resilience and the Secure Base model Gillian Schofield

Outline The Secure Base model – origins and development Significance of attachment and a secure base for fostering and adoption Significance of resilience for fostering and adoption Outline of the Secure Base model

The Secure Base model – origins and development UEA research with Mary Beek on foster care 1997-2011 – analysis drawing on attachment research on caregiving linked to security (Mary Ainsworth) Esmée Fairbairn funded project with BAAF, Coram Adoption and UCL Attachment Handbook for Foster Care and Adoption, DVD and training programme (2006) Care Matters (2007); Providing a secure base website (2008); Skills to Foster (2009)

Research and practice developments International developments: Norway 2007- present. ‘Trygg Base’ in initial training and in supporting foster carers Attachment Handbook for Foster Care and Adoption translated into French (2011) and Italian (2013) New BAAF practice guides, including re-edited DVD 2014 Revised Skills to Foster (The Fostering Network) 2014 Applied in recent research: Looked after children and offending: reducing risk and promoting resilience (2014 BAAF)

Uses of the Secure Base model Assessment and working with children and caregivers in child protection, fostering, kinship care, adoption and residential care Matching children and placements, including packages of support Carers /social workers setting goals for children in each dimension and monitoring progress – new and existing placements Assessing and providing help to placements in difficulties

Significance of attachment and a secure base for child development All infants / children /adolescents need a secure base caregiver who provides comfort when they are distressed, who reduces the child’s anxiety and enables the child to explore, learn and enjoy activities. Secure base caregiving is associated with a secure attachment – but also a wide range of developmental benefits in other relationships and in engagement with constructive and fulfilling activities Providing a secure base requires the caregiver to be attuned to the needs, thoughts and feelings of the particular child – sensitivity / mind-mindedness is key

Significance of attachment and a secure base for fostering and adoption Because of the impact of abuse and neglect on an infant, child or adolescent’s development, they are likely to need therapeutic care in foster care and adoption In this context, there is the potential for all children to become more secure, more confident and more competent – and to build new attachments at all ages The child’s internal working model needs to change from negative to positive – to become ‘I am lovable, I can achieve things’; ‘Other people are available, understand me and can be trusted’

Resilience - significance for child development and for fostering and adoption Resilience –capacity for relative resistance to difficulties Resilience includes self-esteem, self-efficacy, capacity to think and plan, intelligence, emotional intelligence, capacity for close relationships, hopefulness. Also - resilience relies on social capital/social support – and the child /young person’s capacity to use it

Resilience - significance for fostered and adopted children Coming to terms with / resolving feelings and having a balanced and coherent story about the past. In the present – building resilience characteristics / building relationships / networks of support and the capacity to use them. Building strengths to anticipate the future with confidence – adapting positively to future challenges

The Secure Base caregiving dimensions that promote security and resilience Availability - helping the child to trust Sensitivity - helping the child to manage feelings Acceptance - building the child’s self esteem Co-operation - helping the child to feel effective Family membership - helping the child to belong

Availability- helping the child to trust Caregivers need to be available physically, psychologically and emotionally signal availability in age appropriate ways time the relationship ‘dance’ at the pace of the child help the child to know that they are thinking of him or her when apart NB From infancy to adolescence

Availability and trust- a young person’s experience of an available secure base My carer (Jane) she’s really nice and supportive and would help me through anything really. I’ve been here for seven years now. For me it’s the best foster home I could have been to. She certainly helped me progress through school and everything. If I was ever in trouble and didn’t know anything she’d always be there to back me up and ask why I done it and talked to me...She’d sit me down and say it wasn’t a very acceptable thing to have done, what could you have done to be more positive? (John, 16)

Building a relationship Try and build a relationship with your foster carer, even though you may not want to, but this nice relationship just grows and she becomes, you feel like she is your actual mum, and ...it’s just nice to have a relationship with someone, because you might feel like you are alone and you are not alone because you have got someone there. (Maria,16)

Sensitivity- helping the child to manage feelings Caregivers need to: read the child’s signals, think flexibly, contain anxiety name thoughts and feelings– provide a ‘commentary’ give a predictable shape to events e.g. feeds, nappy change, school use practical tools to help the child’s emotional reflection e.g. an experiences book model the expression and management of the caregiver’s own thoughts and feelings promote empathy in the child – how do you/how might other people think and feel? Read story books together.

Managing feelings – becoming less impulsive People say ‘You’re an idiot’ or bad words and I’d be like, normally I’d get angry and want to do something, but now I’m just like whatever, move on. ...Before I would have pulled them up and said , ‘What do you want? What was that for?’ and escalate into a fight and now I am just more laid back and doing good for myself. (Darren,16,)

Acceptance - building the child’s self-esteem Caregivers need to promote the idea -‘Nobody’s good at everything but everybody’s good at something.’ find activities to do and to share - orchestrate achievements, but allow failures and setbacks to happen and be managed. model and teach the child to accept and celebrate difference – ethnicity, personality, talents

Self-esteem - turning my life around I wouldn’t say I feel proud, but I can hold my head up high, same thing. I can say, yeah, I was like that and doing that and now I’m looking to do something for my future. (Patrick, 16)

Co-operation- helping the child to feel effective Caregivers need to offer choice - even in small things help the child to achieve results - both on their own and with help help the child to see / experience the benefits of negotiation and compromise model co-operative behaviour with other family members

Effective, resilient and hopeful Even if you are put in care, you can still have a good life, turn your life around, get grades and do what you want to do. Why risk it all for nothing? (Tracey, 18) That’s just like loads of things happen, it makes you a bit stronger because being in bad situations, that makes you stronger. (Liam,16) In contrast It isn’t that I feel hopeless. It’s like I don’t know where to go and what to do sort of thing. (Lewis,17)

Family membership- helping the child to belong Caregivers need to Ensure the child understands how this family does things; include the child in foster family life/photos Have special places for the child in the family home - for their clothes, at table, in the garden Enable the child to talk about and value their birth family identity Manage contact in ways that promote the child’s well-being and comfortable sense of belonging /connection in both families (toddlers to adolescents, frequent contact to no contact)

Foster family and birth family connections I have got my foster carer, which I see as my mum, and she has got an older daughter, which I see as my sister, ...(Gina, 16) I usually see my granddad once a fortnight if I can. He’s 83. He used to be in the navy so that kept him fit and stuff. When I go down there we read the news, talk about stuff, maybe I’ll watch a bit of telly, he reads his book and makes me egg and chips and then I go home. (Jack,16)

Understanding what matters in a family I wasn’t a good child because my birth family never showed me any love... I was always angry, all the time, and then (foster mother) she saw what was going on and she knew, so she gave me love and she gave me what every mother should give their daughter and I changed my ways and now I don’t do drugs or anything bad like that. (Chantelle,16)