Facilitating Developmental Attachment: The Road To Emotional

The purpose of this paper is to present a literature review on the school-approved dissertation topic: "How do foster parents describe the experiences and engagement in family

Foster Care and Adoption are the most multi-faceted areas of child welfare. Foster care consists of placing children outside of the custody of their parents or legal guardians. This out-of-home placement can be temporary or long-term. Adoption on the other hand, consists of the legal and permanent process that establishes a parent/child relationship between individuals not related biologically (Downs, Moore, & McFadden, 2009). These two areas of child welfare are constantly evolving and the decisions made on a child’s behalf can affect many areas of their biological, spiritual, social, and emotional wellbeing.

Children suffer significantly until someone decides to protect them. The government allocates funds to establish the foster care system and that system advances to enforce rights for children. When the right to remove children from an abusive situation first originated, the foster care system established a separation procedure for children from their abusive homes. This act of removing children from their families brought about psychological issues and trauma. Throughout earlier years, the foster care system adjusted their program according to the rules and regulations established to provide for the needs of children. However, problems keep appearing elsewhere. These children endure the brunt of every new philosophy in behavioral health management. Often, the biological parents will be left out of the solution. The foster care system develops services to train foster families in caring for foster children and behavioral issues. For some reason, the foster care system believes improvement simpler to reform the children and makes a trivial attempt of the reformation with family. The foster care system needs to try to achieve bonds within the biological family instead of the sole reliability on removal of children to be an adequate answer. The foster care system’s obligation should be to develop a training system for the rehabilitation of families and offer support to achieve the greatest outcome in child rearing. Foster care needs to adapt to supporting families emotionally,

Other health problems arise when the trauma from past experiences such as abuse or violence in the home cause long term effects in the children. The needs of children in foster care are multifaceted and the problems are exacerbated when the resources in the community are scarce and when the service system is fragmented (Halfon, Berkowitz, & Klee, 1993). Due to the complexity of their problems and the degree of vulnerability, a well-trained and

Each year 542,000 children nationwide live temporarily with foster parents, while their own parents struggle to overcome an addiction to alcohol, drugs, illness, financial hardship or other difficulties (Mennen, Brensilver, & Trickett, 2010.) The maltreatment they experienced at home, the shock of being separated from their birth parents, and the uncertainty they face as they enter the foster care system leave many children feeling abandoned or lost. Children have many needs, but while in foster care these needs are not always met. A supportive family environment is created for those children whose parents are not able to take the

More than two-hundred and fifty thousand children enter the foster care system each year, making it extremely difficult to find the right caregiver for each child. There are so may effects on the child that last their entire lifetime, making it difficult for them to trust others. Not being able to trust their peers, they often find it hard to make friends and long-term relationships last. Fortunately, there are many results that can improve everyone’s position in placing the child. Foster care agencies repeatedly create destructive situations due to the selected caregiver, as well as the plethora of glitches that are created. Due to the unacceptable and inappropriate selection of foster parents, the child frequently experiences difficulties and disadvantages later on. Most children are placed into foster care because of mistreatment and experience the same treatment in their foster homes. Unfortunately, a lot of times the foster parent will take their anger out on their foster child, making a wide array of short-term and long-term complications for the child.

To begin with, experiences that root anxiety, causes minors to have emotional detriments in foster care. The article, “Reactive Attachment Disorder of Infancy or Early Childhood”, by Jody Bower talks about an illness that hurts foster children’s emotive state. For example, not being able to trust others is an emotional disturbance among youth who obtain

One of this disadvantages of foster care, is there is an instability in the system. At times social workers are unaware that the placement of the child was ruled in court for the return of the child to their parents. Another disadvantage is that the transitory environment of the foster placements has been a problematic component in the child welfare system (Crosson-Tower, 2014, p. 316). Some children already experience attachment issues prior to removal from their home. These issues will further advance and creating more problems with the child. Since foster care is a temporary environment for the child, children may adjust to this temporary placement only to be removed and either return home or be placed with another temporary family. These transitions effect the child’s behaviors and emotions. The goal is to provide the child permanency. However, the foster care system is not meant to

Everywhere across the world, more and more children are being placed into foster care or a welfare type system. Foster care can benefit children or harm them; the effects of foster care differ for every individual. These types of systems often have a major effect on young children’s physiological state. Children entering in foster care are often malnourished and have untreated health problems. A high percentage of children who are placed in these types of systems have mental health, physical health, and/or developmental issue which often originates while the individuals are still in the custody of the biological parents. Children in foster care should be provided with a healthy and nurturing environment which often provides positive long term results. The age of children in a foster care varies across the world, but it is often seen that majority of these children are young (George para. 1). There are more young children in the system because younger children require more adequate care than older children that are already in the system. Placing these children in welfare systems is supposed to be a healing process for them. Although this is supposed to be a healing process, statistics say these children have a negative experience while being in these systems, but this is not always the case. A number of children in foster care fall sucker to continuous neglect and recurrent abuse with the lack of nurturing and an unstable environment. These same children often have unmet

David is currently “of time” with his psychological development. When looking at psychological development it is important to understand the attachment history of the child. Davies (2011) states that a preschooler who appears to have had a secure attachment history will turn to adults for support when they are in distress believing that they will receive the help that they need. However a preschooler who appears to have had an avoidant attachment history will not turn to an adult for help when distress, believing that others cannot be relied upon for support (Davies, 2011). It is evident that David has an attachment history of avoidant or insecure attachment. David struggles to rely on his foster parents for support when distressed, as evident

Exposure to traumatic experiences and consequent complex and varied mental health needs are among the most challenging problem facing foster care youth today (Mckay, Lynn & Bannnon, 2005) . Children in care are more likely to have been exposed to multiple forms of traumatic experiences, such as physical or sexual abuse, neglect, family and/or community violence, trafficking or commercial sexual exploitation, or sexual abuse, bullying, or loss of loved ones. Consequently, trauma experienced by children in foster care is often complex and left untreated permeant permanently effecting the overall growth and development resulting in lasting repercussions felt years later. Some examples of traumatic symptoms include behavioral problems, separation anxiety, and extreme impulsivity (Klain, E. J., & White, A. R. 2013 ). When humans are young, their world often revolves around their parents or care-givers. They are the source of safety and security, of love and understanding, of nurturance and support. A child experiencing trauma or abuse develops strategies, which become coping mechanisms to enable day-to-day functioning. They help the child detach from the emotional and physical pain of events, especially if it continues over a long period of time (Henderson, 2006 ). An abundant amount of literature citations? justify justifies the importance of trauma informed interventions focusing not only on treating symptoms of trauma, such as complex mental health, but also focusing on the

Attachment theory proposes that the way infants and children form bonds with their primary caregiver have lifelong implications as to how they may form bonds with others, including their own children. This bonding is created through affectionate gestures, the ability to rely on the caregiver’s availability and willingness to fulfill the needs of the child, and the general feeling of safety when in the proximity of the caregiver. While the attachments begin as an infant they are malleable throughout life, and easier to form or transform the younger a person is (Strengths-Based Generalist Practice A Collaborative Approach, Poulin, 2010, pp. 580-581).Victoria was in foster care from birth and had not received the ideal responses required of her caregiver. In the case of Victoria she was relocated from placement to placement often, and experienced a variety of abuses and neglect, these characteristics are indicative of someone with an avoidant attachment style. Attachments may become avoidant resulting in the child’s reluctance to put themselves in a position to be forsaken repeatedly by the unapproachability of the caregiver (Dimensions of Human Behavior Person and Environment, Hutchison, 2015, p. 150). Victoria exemplifies this repeatedly throughout the book in the fact that she refuses to rely on any caregiver, in the specific case of her placement with Elizabeth she refuses to believe that there would be any permanency. “I did not believe there to be even the

Attachment disorder is a very commonly seen in foster or adopted children, they are angry, they don’t like any show of affection from their caregivers and, they lose control trying to control many situations. The Attachment bond takes time to be formed, and in many cases, foster children do not stay long enough in the foster home to create the attachment. Children taken from their primary caregivers in many instances are already attached and independently what are the causes for the separation the child can suffer from separation anxiety and stranger distress, and it is a challenging situation when presented to a new caregiver. Developing a secure attachment with a substitute carer is key to improving outcomes for foster children.

Each of these domains I have written about come together in order to create one normally functioning and developing baby boy named Liam. Quite a few connections can be made between the domains: attachment, cognitive development, language development, motor skill development, and temperament. One connection can be made between attachment and cognitive development, because, “On cognitive tasks, the securely attached children have scored higher on measures of persistence and self-reliance” (Crain, 2011, p. 63). This is true in Liam’s case because he is both securely attached and persistent. Another connection can be made between attachment and language/communication development, because when an infant is beginning to speak their first words, “The parent and baby…have been practicing communicative exchanges for many months,” due to attachment as well as play (Davies, 2011, p. 158). Even though Liam is not speaking words yet, Sheila and Derek have been and are continuing to teach him what will be his first words. This is done through the repeated labeling of objects and actions used in ordinary conversations that occur every day between them and with Liam. A final connection, and perhaps the largest connection, can be made between motor development, cognitive development,

This research will be designed to gather information about the mothers of child aged 0-5 who has been fostered at young age. It will be focused on sharing their experiences as a foster child, how they would want to rear their children, what was most difficult being a raised by non-biological parents, and how they would want to establish bonding with their child. If they feel their certain behaviour to the child is caused due to personal foster history. The mothers with at least one pre-school child will receive an invitation to engage in the study. The population sample size will be determined by the constraints of limited resources, the number of interviews to be managed and the time and resources available (Bryman, 2012). The participants will be selected to establish range of wide spectrum including age, ethnicity, socio-economic, and kin and non-kin placement to provide consequential meanings through interviews. From this cohort, 12 mothers of children who may be risk of poor attachment development will be hoped for this research. Number of interviews will be