Nurturing Attachments Training Resource ─ Running Parenting Groups for Adoptive Parents and Kinship Carers

Golding, a clinical psychologist in the UK who trains and accredits professionals in the use of dyadic developmental psychotherapy, offers a group work program meant to provide support and guidance to adoptive parents and foster carers of children with trauma or attachment difficulties. For use by psychologists, social workers, residential child care workers, and other professionals, the program draws on attachment theory and an understanding of the impact of trauma on children's development and security. It contains three modules of six sessions each, which focus on attachment theory, patterns of attachment, developmental trauma, emotional regulation, and therapeutic parenting; the house model of parenting, which emphasizes the family as a secure base and addresses developing parenting skills matched to the emotional and behavioral needs of children, empathy and support, attunement to increase empathy, protecting the family atmosphere, creating a feeling of belonging, and looking after oneself; and how parents can build a relationship with children while managing their behavior. In addition, chapters on running the group and the evidence base for the program are provided. Photocopiable activity sheets, handouts, and reflection diary sheets are included on the CD-ROM. The program is a revised and rewritten version of one first published in Nurturing Attachments (2006) and includes a more practical focus on parenting earlier in the first module, and more on developing parents' skills for mentalization and being mind-minded, self-care and understanding the self with the aim of reducing stress, and managing the behavior of children while maintaining an emotional connection. It also includes discussion of children's struggles in friendships and in school; more emphasis on the house model in the context of therapeutic parenting; a section on brain-based parenting and blocked care; the use of PACE (playfulness, acceptance, curiosity, and empathy) as a parenting attitude; the use of reflection diaries; and process notes for each session. Annotation c2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Kim S. Golding is a clinical psychologist who works in Worcestershire, England where she was influential in the founding of the Integrated Service for Looked After Children - a multi-agency, holistic service providing support for foster, adoptive and residential parents, schools and the range of professionals supporting children growing up in care or in adoptive families. Kim was trained and mentored by Dan Hughes in the use of Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (DDP). She is on the board of the Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy Institute supporting the use of DDP in Europe, USA and Canada. She accredits and trains professionals in the approach in the UK and has been invited to speak about this work internationally. Kim is author of Nurturing Attachments: Supporting Children who are Fostered and Adopted; co-author with Dan Hughes of Creating Loving Attachments: Parenting with PACE to Nurture Confidence and Security in the Troubled Child; and lead author of two observational checklists designed for use in educational settings, Observing Children with Attachment Difficulties in Preschool Settings (for children aged 0-4) and Observing Children with Attachment Difficulties in School (for children aged 5-11). All these titles are available from Jessica Kingsley Publishers.