Session 6/15

How to practice professional caregiving

Competences to be exercised:

• Understanding the ongoing balance between and importance of task work and relations work
  
• Planning for and practicing task work and relations work simultaneously 
  
• Understanding and practicing the five dimensions of Secure Caregiver Behaviour
  

Theme of the session:
In session 4 you worked with understanding attachment behaviour and how caregivers can offer the children a Secure Base. In this session you will study Secure Caregiver Behaviour in detail, and how children respond to care. How should caregivers behave in order to make the children feel secure, so they can explore, play and learn?

Children learn very early to cope with separation. The individual child learns a strategy of coping with separation and stress from it’s first caregivers. Basically children have four ways of coping – these strategies are called Attachment Patterns. In this session, you will learn practices that helps the foster child develop a Secure Attachment pattern.

“I cared for a young boy who was arguing with me for years. He often disobeyed, and he showed me no trust. After I started practicing the five dimensions of Secure care his behavior changed in two weeks – now he asks me if he can have a day off from school, so we can spend the whole day together!” Caregiver’s statement.

Aims of the session:

The main goal of this session is to understand two ways of practicing professional care. The first is about how you can combine practical work with training the child’s social skills and develop your relations. The second is five ways of behaving that research find to be important skills to make a child feel secure.

Why and how:
Professional care focuses on the emotional and social relation with the child. At the same time you also have to do a lot of practical work: change diapers, prepare meals, feed the children, etc. So you will discuss how you balance relations work with practical task work. We will study in detail what is important to do in the caregiver-child relation.

Before arriving in foster care, the child may have experienced neglecting or violent parents, many different caregivers, or busy and overworked staff members. Because of this, many children don’t respond normally to care, and it may take a long time before they do. So, we will also study how children respond to care, their attachment patterns, and how you can behave to make the child feel secure.