Therapeutic parenting programme for foster carers, kinship carers and adoptive parents

Northern Trust staff, Louise Faulkner, Senior Social Worker and Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapist and Amy Stitt, Associate Psychologist have presented at the International Federation Social Work European Conference in Prague in May 2023, where social workers from across the world gathered to inspire, share and learn from each other.

Louise and Amy from the Therapeutic Team for Looked After and Adopted Children presented on the team’s experience and feedback from service users involved in the ‘Foundations for Attachment’, a therapeutic parenting programme delivered by the Northern Trust to foster carers, kinship carers and adoptive parents and professionals supporting families.

‘Foundations for Attachment’ is a six-session programme to help parents and carers nurture attachments with their child.  It is designed specifically by Dr Kim Golding (2017) Consultant Clinical Psychologist for those adults caring for children whose capacity to emotionally connect has been compromised as a result of attachment problems, trauma, and loss or separation.  The programme is based on the principles of Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (DDP) developed by Dr Dan Hughes, an eminent child psychologist, who specialises in working with children and young people who fear attachment security and love, because of the trauma, abuse and neglect they have experienced within relationships.

DDP is a therapy, parenting approach and model for practice that uses what we know about attachment and developmental trauma to help children and families within their relationships.  Integral to DDP is an attitude of PACE – playfulness, acceptance, curiosity and empathy, to encourage a deepening of emotional connections, strengthening of attachments and opportunity for children and young people to repair within a healthy and safe loving relationship.

Amy Stitt, Associate Psychologist, said:

“Feedback and outcomes from the programme have shown it to be really beneficial and we wanted to bring that to the conference, highlight the work within our team and to highlight how helpful the programme is for the families we work with.

“Attendees were asked to write down one word that they could take away with them afterwards – ‘inspiring’, ‘visionary’ and ‘transformative’ were some of the words used by delegates.”

The Northern Health and Social Care Trust has supported the Therapeutic Team for Looked After and Adopted Children (TTLAAC) to consistently implement the Foundations for Attachment Programme since March 2021, which was developed for online facilitation, to enable participation through the COVID-19 pandemic.

Louise and Amy were the only presenters who co-presented from a multi-disciplinary team,  which in itself sparked a lot of interest from attendees and further evidenced the positive interface within the delivery of services across Team North.

Participation in the International Federation Social Work European Conference provided the opportunity to develop connections, enhance learning as to global societal needs and social work identity globally, and facilitated the potential for co-production, whilst promoting the benefits of the Foundations for Attachment Programme to different audiences.

But most importantly, this provided an opportunity to highlight the hard work and commitment of their team in TTLAAC, in continuing to deliver services to families, through a very challenging time, whilst continuing to develop the programme based on service user feedback following participation.

19th June 2023