The Secure Base Model: Promoting attachment and resilience in foster care and adoption

All children need to feel secure in their relationships with the adults who look after them. Where children have not experienced the kind of sensitive parenting that promotes security and resilience, they will find it difficult to trust and will struggle with managing their feelings and behaviour. What strategies can be used to provide sensitive caregiving that develops secure close relationships? How can children be helped to recover from earlier harmful experiences and feel competent to face future challenges successfully and fulfil their potential? What can help children develop resilience, self-esteem and the capacity to reflect on their feelings and have a sense of hope for the future? Secure Base is a model of caregiving in fostering and adoption that is based on theories of attachment and resilience while also drawing on child placement research. It provides a valuable framework and a strengths-based approach for making sense of children s needs and behaviours and sets out the dimensions of caregiving that can support children to thrive and to fulfil their potential. This practical guide to the Secure Base is designed to support social workers and other professionals involved in all aspects of fostering and adoption practice, from recruitment, assessment and preparation to matching and long-term support for placements through to adulthood. It will enable workers to effectively promote attachment and resilience in foster care.

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