Overview For Agency Professionals
The Infant-Caregiver Project studies the effectiveness of training programs for parents and high-risk children.
Through following the development of children for the past 12 years, we have identified three key issues for children who experience disruptions in care at an early age.
Children who experience early adversity tend to:
- Push caregivers away emotionally when they are hurt or frustrated, acting as if they can handle things on their own.
- Are at risk for developing insecure attachments to new caregivers.
- Are often dysregulated at behavioral and biobehavioral levels.
Based on these results, we have developed a parent intervention, Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up Intervention, that addresses the special emotional and relationship needs of children who have experienced disruptions in care.
The intervention will help foster parents:
- Provide nurturance even when children do not appear to need it.
- Provide nurturance even when it does not come naturally to parents.
- Provide a very predictable environment, so the children can learn to regulate their behavior and emotions.
The intervention is being provided in the homes of foster parents, birth parents, and relative caregivers. We are following these children for five years.
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