Disorganized attachment is the most extreme form of insecure attachment. This book is a practical guide to caring for children and young people with disorganized attachment and related emotional and psychological difficulties. Synthesising attachment, trauma and mentalization theory into a useful practice model, Empathic Care for Children with Disorganized Attachments proposes ways of meeting the needs arising in children and young people with disorganized attachments. Focusing on the importance of interpersonal bonds to facilitate the child's capacity to mentalize, it aims to equip the reader with the appropriate skills to provide effective, sustained and, most importantly, empathic care to the most vulnerable and troubled children. This structured psychotherapeutic approach to caregiving will enable the development of child–carer relationships and can be used to create informed, safe environments that support both the young person and the caregiver. This useful guide will be invaluable to health and social care professionals including residential carers, therapists, counsellors, and those working with vulnerable and troubled children and young people including those supporting foster and adoptive families.

A comprehensive overview for professionals working with traumatized children, which outlines the theory and practice of life story therapy, a method which helps children and cares to question and resolve issues and events within a child's life.

This book guides childcare professionals through attachment theory and provides techniques for caring for children with attachment difficulties. It explains what attachment is, what different patterns of attachment look like in children and young people, how early attachment experiences affect their lives, and how this understanding can help childcare workers to develop therapeutic ways of caring. By understanding these issues, childcare workers are better equipped to help and support the troubled children they care for. This book shows how to promote recovery through secure base experiences in a therapeutic environment and provides solutions and methods to tackle challenging and problem behaviour, anger and the effects of trauma in children with attachment problems. This essential book will be invaluable to professionals such as residential carers, social workers and foster carers who work in a therapeutic environment with vulnerable and troubled children and young people.

Assessing Disorganized Attachment Behaviour in Children lays out an evidence-based model for working with and assessing children with disorganized attachment and their adult carers: families whose extreme, erratic and disturbing behaviour can make them perplexing and frustrating to work with. The model is designed to identify key indicators and explanatory mechanisms of child maltreatment: disorganized attachment in the child, a parent's unresolved loss or trauma, disconnected and extremely insensitive parenting, and low parental mentalisation. The book also outlines ways of assessing children for disorganized attachment and carer capacity, and proposes interventions. Accessible and practical, this book is essential reading for child protection professionals.

Mindful Therapeutic Care for Children is an accessible guide to using mindfulness and reflection to improve the quality of care for vulnerable children. Drawing on ideas from attachment theory and neuroscience, Mindful Therapeutic Care for Children explains terms like mindfulness and reflective practice, their importance in the therapeutic care of children and how the theory behind them can provide a key to understanding children's behaviour. This book discusses how the mental and emotional environment around children affects them, and how practising mindfulness can help us generate more supportive environments. The author also features an 'Awareness Pentagon' model for reflective practice, an original tool developed through her training designed to help you to approach cases critically and to focus more effectively on the child's needs. This practical book provides psychologists, therapists, social workers and other professionals working with children, as well as foster carers and adoptive parents with useful tools to develop their capacity for mindful care.

Combining contemporary research with practice findings, this book shows how we can improve the mental health of children in care. Expert contributors highlight the challenges that children face and propose innovative models of practice which have been proven to improve outcomes. The book describes the difficulties children in care commonly encounter, such as vulnerability to self-harm, substance misuse or inappropriate sexual behaviour. It goes on to explore therapeutic interventions, such as art therapy or integrative therapy, which can be used to address the root of these behaviours. With a range of clinical and practical perspectives, it also makes recommendations for further training for foster carers, for reinforcing professional support networks and for all agencies to have a developed understanding of cultural considerations when working with children in care. Those committed to improving the mental health of children and young people in care, such as psychologists, psychiatrists, CAMHS professionals and social workers, will find this book an invaluable source of evidence and inspiration.

How can we help heal children who have been abused or neglected? Healing Child Trauma Through Restorative Parenting details how children can be helped to recover with the use of Restorative Parenting, an innovative model informed by psychological and neurological understanding of trauma and its effects. It explains the critical role that people, relationships and the environment play in a child's recovery. It shows what constitutes a therapeutic environment, whereby a child experiences therapy not as one-to-one sessions but as a lived experience. The authors show how other components of the model - building therapeutic relationships, promoting positive education and encouraging clinically informed life style choices - are intimately linked, each critical to the re-parenting which the child undergoes. This book will be welcomed by professionals working with children, including those in residential, health and foster care, psychology, education and health, as well as those commissioning services. The models, concepts and practices are transferable to public, private and charitable agencies.