Observing Adolescents with Attachment Difficulties in Educational Settings

Kim S. Golding, CBE, BSc, MSc, D. Clin. Psy. AFBPsS is a clinical psychologist who works in Worcestershire, England where she was influential in the founding of the Integrated Service for Looked After Children - a multi-agency, holistic service providing support for foster, adoptive and residential parents, schools and the range of professionals supporting children growing up in care or in adoptive families. Kim was trained and mentored by Dan Hughes in the use of Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (DDP). She is on the board of the Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy Institute supporting the use of DDP in Europe, USA and Canada. She accredits and trains professionals in the approach in the UK and has been invited to speak about this work internationally.Mary Turner is a counsellor and psychotherapist. She has considerable experience working with grieving children and families in social service, hospital, hospice and bereavement service settings. She teaches on university palliative care courses.Helen Worrall is a support teacher for ISL, with over ten years' experience teaching children with special needs.

• Foreword. Acknowledgements. Introduction: About this Resource. 1. Child Development in the Early Years and Beyond. 2. Recognizing the Emotional Needs of Students in Educational Settings. 3. Understanding Emotional Needs Through Knowledge of Attachment Theory. 4. Introducing the Observation Checklist. 5. Detailed Guidance for Completing the Checklist Section by Section. 6. Worked Examples of the Observation Checklist. 7. Analysis of Information: Interpreting the Completed Checklist. 8. Worked Examples of Interpreting the Checklist and Support Plans. 9. Helping the Student with Attachment Difficulties in Educational Settings. 10. Helping the Student with Different Attachment Styles in Educational Settings. 11. Supporting the Emotional Needs of Students with Attachment Difficulties. 12. Supporting Students with Multiple Difficulties. Appendix 1: Observation Checklist. Appendix 2: Adolescent Development. Appendix 3: Attachment Theory and Educational Settings. Appendix 4: Supporting Adolescents in Educational settings. Appendix 5: Glossary. Appendix 6: Glossary for UK Education System. References. Further Reading and Useful Websites. Author Biographies.

This wonderful book focuses on the use of a comprehensive observation checklist for these students. However it provides so much more! It includes the development of well-informed action plans based on the detailed information obtained by the checklist as well as a thorough understanding of the complex difficulties shown by these adolescents. It also helps us to understand the services and programs needed by them, along with the characteristics of the adults and schools which these youth desperately need if they are to successfully proceed with their social, emotional, and behavioral development. This will serve as an important resource for educators even if they were never to use the checklist, though I would strongly encourage them to include it in their knowledgeable efforts to best meet the needs of these students. Observing Adolescents with Attachment Difficulties in Educational Settings is an excellent addition to the earlier works and checklists by Golding and colleagues for preschool and school age children.