Development of Attachment and its Application to Trauma-Informed CYCC Practice

The following global ideas guide the design and delivery of this course:

• As child and youth care practice focuses around the importance of building strong relationships with children and youth, it is important for the CYC practitioner to understand the process of attachment, how it changes and how it can be affected across the life span.
• Attachment is a regulatory system that starts to develop in infancy and continues to develop throughout life via the process of dynamic, responsive interaction.
• The process of responsive caregiving enables the child to learn to sooth and calm themself.  This self knowledge of what to do when faced with adversity enables the development of self-regulation.
• Children who have experienced early trauma often struggle to self-regulate.
• A number of factors can affect the attachment process:
• Parenting style
• Parent well-being, including a history of trauma
• Child well-being, including experiences of violence and trauma
• The child's temperament
• Macro level factors (cultural beliefs, values and practices; policies and legislation related to caregiving roles and responsibilities; colonization; racism; forced migration; able-ism)
• Attachment security influences
• confidence and trust in self and in relationships with others
• the capacity for self-regulation
• the capacity for empathy 
• comfort and capacity in navigating change and challenges
• mental well-being over the life course
• Physical proximity to the primary caregiver and the family/caregiving unit decreases as the child ages and friends and romantic attachments become important.  However, the family/caregiving unit still remains a secure base from which to negotiate autonomy well into young adulthood.
• Attachment theory influences how we take care of children in the home, hospital, and in childcare.  Current laws around parental leave, custody agreements and foster care all grow out of the understanding of the importance of these early relationships to later psycho-social development.  
• Understanding how attachment influences the developmental well-being of children and youth enables CYCC practitioners to respond to the challenges faced by children and youth within a framework of trauma-informed, anti-racist, anti-colonial care.