At the end of the placement experience I now understand that foster care can solve some problems like providing safety, shelter, positive parenting and a family for children and respite and parenting skills experience for families awaiting a legal resolution of their position following child abandonment. However foster care does not necessarily provide total emotional security, permanence or stability and continuity of care giving or attachment and bonding of the birth parent to the child and it does not help the parent deal with the child’s special needs. So I felt that I needed to dig deeper into the theories of attachment. This desire has led to my interests in theories of attachment measurement systems such as the PAA, AAI, SSP, SAA/SAT because I feel that my understanding of these tools will assist in improving my practice of assessment and intervention. In my continued search for more knowledge, I learned from Walker (2008) that during the carer recruitment process, the social worker should seek to assess three qualities: 1-the ability to manage a wide range of feelings, both in oneself and in others; 2- the resolution of past losses and traumas and 3- the acquisition of reflective function. He believes that those are the characteristics of someone who has an autonomous state of mind, meaning someone who has a history of secure attachment with primary caregivers or who has resolved any childhood issues.
Schofield and Beek (2006) suggested that attachment theory provides a scientifically rigorous and yet practical framework for making sense of children’s challenging behaviours and for supporting caregivers in caring for such children. And they propose that carers develop ‘the capacity to reflect on complex and often confusing behaviour and then tune in accurately to underlying thoughts and feelings’. This means that carers should be able to see beyond the immediate behaviour to think about what might lie behind and motivate it. For them the ability to do this helps the carer to respond more sensitively and in turn help the child manage the feelings more appropriately. Dozier (2003) argues that the child’s attachment pattern and habitual ways of behaving need to be challenged rather than the carer colluding with them; therefore it is important during the matching process for social workers to ensure that the foster carer is the best fit for the child depending on both the adult’s attachment history and the child attachment pattern. These theories I intend to carry with me and take account of in future assessment of prospective foster carers or adopters.
I have also learned from the placement experience to work with distressed young people in a friendly and non –oppressive way when I was assigned to sexual assault casework. I was requested to produce a report for the children reporter, so I arranged a visit to the service user in writing then agreed a final meeting time over the phone. This process was not straight forward because I have had to negotiate the first appointment by being firm due to my subject’s mother appearing reluctant to agree to a date for my visit and so I have had to remind her that I have a legal duty and professional responsibility to come out and visit her daughter and her family. On reflection, I think that I adopted a fairly positive approach in terms of professional practice because while I gave the service user the opportunity to choose a convenient date and time, I did not fail to address the main objective of my task which is to write a report outlining my recommendations that takes account of the service user’s best interest. Prior to meeting with the service user I had some apprehension in terms of approaching the service user’s mother because she did not appear to want me there at the start. And her gender raise my awareness/consciousness of her age and ability to understand my role; especially at a time when she is in a state of trauma, loss and a change in her micro-environment (Bronfenbrenner, 1979) and struggling to cope with her trauma and the change in her life. However, going along with a female worker proved to be reassuring for the family and specifically the service user. I was satisfied that the initial communication concerns raised have been a positive learning experience after all. I established good rapport and gained trust was established resulting in me getting another appointment. In fact, once I learned about the concerns raised by the family I was able to prepare my first visit by taking on board the advice by Hepworth and Larsen (1990) of empathic communication when working with children and families. I made a good use myself and other colleagues in establishing good rapport and winning the trust of the services users.
REFERENCES
Beek, M. and Schofield, G. (2005) Providing a secure base in long term foster care: parenting children in long term foster care, Attachment and Human Development, Vol 7 No1 pp3-25
Brofenbrenner, U. (1979) The ecology of human development. Cambridge: Harvard University Press
Dozier, M., Lindheim, O., Ackerman, J. (2003) Attachment and biobehavioral catch-up: an intervention targeting empirically identified needs of foster infants, Enhancing Early Attachments, New York, NY:The Guildford Press
Fahlberg, V.I. (1994) A child journey through placement, London: BAAF
Gilligan (1999) Child Development for child protection workers, London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Hepworth & Larsen (1990), Direct Social work practice
Fonagy P. (1999) Trans-generational consistencies of attachment: A new theory,A paper given at the developmental and Psychoanalytic discussion Group, American Psychoanalytic Meeting, Washington, DC 1999.
Schofield and Beek, M. (2006), Attachment handbook for foster care and adoption
Walker,J (2008) The use of attachment Theory in adoption and fostering, Adoption & Fostering Quarterly Journal, Vol 32, No1 pp49-57
