Potential pitfalls

A recent criticism focuses on an over-emphasis on attachment as the dominant framework in assessment of the child’s circumstances which neglects the crucial importance of socio-economic pressures which may compromise their parents’ ability to offer a secure base. Featherstone and Gupta (2018) argue that this approach is highly prejudicial, disadvantaging parents who struggle with poverty and other forms of environmental stress. This misuse of attachment theory can, therefore, be seen as supporting highly oppressive practice. If insufficient attention is paid to these socio-economic pressures, there is a real danger that parents may be unfairly blamed when the provision of scaffolding could enhance their ability to offer protective, nurturing care. White and colleagues (2020) add to the challenge, claiming that attachment theory can be misused to reach biased conclusions in assessment, unfairly influencing decision making in courts.

Considering underlying reasons

Corry McDonald explains that other reasons, beyond family and attachment, may be underlying certain behaviours and that these have to be considered.

Other criticisms challenge the over-emphasis on one framework at the expense of others which have much to offer, both to our understanding of children’s needs and to interventions to support recovery from early adversity and the development of resilience (Smith and colleagues, 2017). These authors prefer the use of the term ‘relationship’ rather than’ attachment’ as they see this as more readily inclusive of approaches which truly reflect the range of theoretical frameworks which capture the features of relationship-based work with children and young people.

Foster carers or residential workers are, in most cases, not trying to be the child’s mother, but, nevertheless, offer a close emotional connection that may be called love.(Smith and colleagues, 2017, p1616)