Attachment-based Practice with Children, Adolescents & Families

This one-day book launch and training workshop is for professionals from a range of disciplines who work with children, adolescents, and families where insecure attachment and / or unresolved trauma and loss may be a significant factor affecting family members’ safety, health, and well-being.

The workshop is for professionals working across health, social care, education, adoption and fostering, criminal justice and the voluntary sector. The workshop is also the formal launch of the new book, Attachment-based Practice with Children, Adolescents and Families, published by Pavilion Publishing.

The workshop will be facilitated by the four authors of the book.

NOTE: The workshop fee includes one copy of the book, which will be given out on the day.

• Understanding the key elements of contemporary attachment theory.

• Understanding the developmental pathways which lead to the different attachment / self-protective strategies.

• A chance for multi-disciplinary teams to develop a common language for discussing attachment, family dynamics and related issues.

• Identifying how different attachment strategies are expressed in verbal and non-verbal communication.

• Introduction to several tools and scales used to assess attachment strategies in children, adolescents, adults, and families.

• Implications for assessment and treatment.

• A plenary discussion, focusing on ‘next steps’ and learning to apply in practice.

The day will be a mixture of presentation and discussion. The presenters have extensive clinical, managerial and facilitation experience which encompasses child protection, risk management and work with children, adolescents, families, and adults whose behaviour is harmful to children.

Presenters:

Lydia Guthrie MA (Oxon) MSc Dip SW is a Systemic Psychotherapist working part-time in an NHS Child and Adolescent Mental Health setting, registered with the UK Council of Psychotherapy and the Association of Family Therapy. Her initial training was as Social Worker (Dip SW), following which she spent ten years working for the Probation Service in a range of specialisms. From 2008 to 2012, she was contracted - with Clark Baim - as co-lead national trainer for the UK's community-based sexual offending treatment programmes run by the Probation Service. She has extensively studied the DMM and has an MSc in Attachment Studies from Roehampton University. When not working in the NHS, she delivers training across a wide range of social care, mental health, criminal justice and voluntary organisations, offers clinical and reflective supervision to teams and individuals, and is an Associate of Research in Practice. She has co-written three books, including Supporting Older People Using Attachment-Informed and Strengths-Based Approaches, plus several book chapters. In 2021, she was part of a group who began a campaign of anti-racist activism in social care, which culminated in publishing The Anti-Racist Social Worker, to which she contributed a chapter. Contact: [email protected]

Dr. Satbinder Kaur Bhogal is a Clinical Psychologist who has worked for more than 20 years within the field of Mental Health in various organisations. Satbinder currently supports children and adults experiencing complex trauma, often leading to suicidal and other risky behaviour, in both NHS and other social care, mental health and voluntary organisations. She has a wealth of experience in working with children in foster care and those who are adopted. Satbinder also provides clinical supervision, training, mentoring, reflective practice and staff supervision (group and individual) to staff teams, applying a group analytic multi-perspective lens to understanding teams and group dynamics. Satbinder has extensively studied the Dynamic-Maturational Model of Attachment and Adaptation and has used attachment theory as the basis of all her work. She has a keen interest in therapies that draw upon attachment theory and are relational based. These include Mentalization Based Therapy (MBT) and Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (ISTDP). Contact: [email protected]

Dr. Ezra Chun-Chong Loh MD, MMed(Psych), DMedSc, FRCPsych (UK), moved from Malaysia to the UK in the late 1990s to further his specialty training and postgraduate research. He has since settled in England and works as a Consultant Psychiatrist in Child, Adolescent and Adult Mental Health, with a special interest in Attachment and Psychopathology across the life span. He is intrigued by the moments of attunement when interacting with his daughter who has an intellectual disability, is non-verbal and has a limited communicative ability. This helps with developing curiosity when relating with other parents, including those who attend his clinics. Ezra’s thinking and practice are informed by his previous research in perinatal infant-mental health and training in Mentalisation-Based Treatment (MBT). He frequently uses principles of the Dynamic-Maturational Model of Attachment and Adaptation (DMM) in case formulation and attachment-based interventions for his clients’ mental health conditions (e.g. complex trauma and emerging personality disorders) and neurodevelopmental disorders (e.g. ADHD and Autism Spectrum Conditions). Contact: [email protected]

Dr. Clark Baim, PhD, is a Psychodrama Psychotherapist (UK Council for Psychotherapy) and a registered Senior Trainer and Clinical and Training Supervisor with the British Psychodrama Association (BPA). He is on the faculty of the Family Relations Institute (www.familyrelationsinstitute.org), which is the training organisation for the Dynamic-Maturational Model of Attachment and Adaptation (DMM). In the 1990s, Clark worked as a group psychotherapist for five years at HM Pr*son Grendon, a therapeutic community Pr*son in the UK. He is a registered trainer in the Adult Attachment Interview (DMM method) and a forensic level coder of the DMM-AAI. His publications include more than forty books, chapters, and articles in the fields of attachment, psychodrama psychotherapy, co-working, working with survivors of trauma, applied theatre and criminal justice interventions. Clark is the co-author, with Tony Morrison, of Attachment-based Practice with Adults (2011), also published by Pavilion. He is a founding member and current Chair of the International Association for the Study of Attachment. Contact: [email protected]

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Midlands Arts Centre, Cannon Hill Park, Birmingham, United Kingdom