Abstract

Nurturing Attachments Training Resource is a complete group-work programme containing everything you need to run training and support sessions for adoptive parents and foster or kinship carers. Based on attachment theory and developed by expert author and trainer Kim Golding, this rich resource provides an authoritative set of ideas for therapeutically parenting children along with all the guidance you will need to implement the training.

The training resource includes theoretical content and process notes for facilitators, and a range of activities supported by online downloadable content with photocopiable reflective diary sheets, activity sheets and handouts. It is structured into 3 modules with 6 sessions per module. Module 1: Provides an understanding of attachment theory, patterns of attachment and an introduction to therapeutic parenting. Module 2: Introduces the House Model of Parenting, providing guidance on how to help the children experience the family as a secure base. Module 3: Continues exploring the House Model of Parenting, with consideration of how parents can both build a relationship with the children and manage their behaviour.

This will be an invaluable resource and one-stop guide for any professionals involved in training foster carers and adoptive parents, as well as residential child care workers and kinship carers.

I am thrilled to be able to highly recommend Kim Golding's latest book Nurturing Attachments Training Resource to those providing professional services to adoptive parents and carers of traumatized children with attachment difficulties. This highly readable work presents in detail Kim's group training program for adoptive parents and carers that she has used for a number of years. Kim presents clearly the three modules (each involving six sessions) that make up the training and includes handouts and other materials that can be copied and utilized. She presents the key components of the group process itself as well as supportive research to demonstrate the effectiveness of the program.

Kim's comprehensive and creative work will also be of great benefit to professionals in the development of their own knowledge of raising children and youth impacted by trauma and attachment problems. Professionals may also use these materials to guide their interventions with individual families. Finally, adoptive parents and carers may also find this work of help when facing the unique struggles they encounter in their efforts to provide good care to their vulnerable children.

In short, I am certain that Kim's work will contribute greatly to our efforts both to understand the care that these children need as well as to guide their parents and carers in their efforts to provide such care. We will all experience much gratitude to Kim for Nurturing Attachments Training Resource in the years ahead.

Daniel A. Hughes, Ph.D., President of the Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy Institute, Pennsylvania, USA
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.
Foster carers and adoptive parents can make bringing up children and young people with complex needs and helping them feel part of their new families appear effortless, but my experience of working with some of the best shows that it's far from easy. I welcome any resource that supports carers to do this well. This material, from an author with a great deal of knowledge about the tasks involved, and with its focus on what they can do and everyday strategies which will make a difference, is very welcome.
Dr Andrea Warman, social care research, policy and development consultant, UK
In Nurturing Attachments Kim Golding explores parenting children who have attachment and trauma-related difficulties in a theoretically sound manner. Golding's work will be a valuable resource for anyone facilitating parent education/support groups. This programme will not only help its users develop a comprehensive understanding of the complexities that exist in the relationships they have with their children, but also show how they can use this understanding to transform these relationships. Golding has done a masterful job at integrating theory with a practicality that will enable parents to feel more effective in their parenting roles.
Gregory C. Keck, Ph.D., Founder/Director of the Attachment and Bonding Center of Ohio, USA, Co-author of Adopting the Hurt Child (2009), Parenting the Hurt Child (2002), and author of Parenting Adopted Adolescents (2009)