Conclusions

Frameworks developed from attachment theory have been helpful to practitioners in understanding the emotional predicament of children and their parents and the challenges faced by kinship, foster, adoptive and residential carers.

Used with care, these frameworks can guide respectful interventions designed to enhance the child’s wellbeing in close, nurturing relationships, wherever it is possible for this to be achieved. Attachment research, when translated into practice, and which takes fully into account an awareness of wider family circumstances, is invaluable in structuring effective work towards meaningful change.

As Bowlby (1978) observed, change continues throughout the life cycle so that changes for the better are always possible.

The challenges facing practitioners working with troubled children and young people can be considerable. However, as Howe (2005, p278) observes:

Those who can stay with, and touch these children, emotionally and psychologically, have the capacity to heal young minds. If relationships are where things developmental can go wrong, then relationships are where they are most likely to be put right.