What is Safe Base?
Funded over the past 3 years by the DfES, the SAFE project has provided parenting training to over 70 adoptive families in the Lancashire area. These families have been referred through social services or other agencies, or through self-referral. All have been experiencing difficulties in parenting their children, owing to early experiences affecting their attachments. The ages of the children have ranged from 1 – 15 years.
Following external evaluation and exceptionally positive responses from the participants of all courses, the decision has been taken to continue providing the programme, now renamed ‘SafeBase’, through funded referrals or by contract with local authorities.
Why was SafeBase developed?
SafeBase has been created to meet the demands from parents for help in dealing with challenging behaviours from their adoptive children. The SafeBase programme was developed in response to After Adoption’s experience of requests from parents for practical ways to address and manage challenging behaviour. After Adoption staff have attended the Introduction to Theraplay training since 2003. The charity subsequently developed a parenting programme that uses structured play techniques to create healthy attachments between adoptive parents and their children to change and reduce negative behaviour.
Approach
The SafeBase programme has a number of key objectives to:
- educate and inform parents about attachment difficulties
- teach parents techniques to build positive attachments and modify their children’s negative behaviour
- enable parents to exchange ideas and mutual support
- enable professionals working with adoptive families in difficulty to exchange ideas
- produce a resource pack for use by adoptive parents in the future.
What the course consists of:
- Observed assessment of family dynamics between each parent and each child by two workers (first visit with family)
- Observation report compiled
- Observation feedback provided to family with report and opportunity to discuss their needs before attending training course (second meeting with family)
- 4 day (24 hour) training course for prospective adopters and adoptive parents involving education on attachment and loss, consideration of parents’ own history and how this may impact on their parenting, narrative work and therapeutic techniques for improving attachments and changing difficult behaviour.
- Follow up parent support groups (currently quarterly)
- Children’s activity groups running in parallel to training course and support groups to allow parents to attend and children to socialise with other adopted children
- Access to private website forum for ongoing support and advice
- Training manual for each family
Main Techniques used in SafeBase
- SafeBase uses Theraplay®, a structured play therapy for children and their parents, which employs a very specific approach and key activities to help parents/carers and their child/ren to connect and enjoy healthy relationships.
- SafeBase uses play to introduce four dimensions of importance - nurture, structure (boundaries), engagement and challenge. Play is encouraged alongside nurture, emotional stability, and boundaries. The SafeBase approach provides direction and instruction to the parent/carer in how to interact with their child.
- Attachment narrative therapy is part of the programme as a technique that uses stories to help communicate and connect with troubled children.
- During the course, parents/carers role play together and learn techniques that include the use of touch, setting of parameters for behaviour, and focused time with an individual child.
Life Long Impact
From a longer-term perspective, the SafeBase programme has proved to be effective for parents months and even years after the original training course. Techniques were still used and parents quoted a constant and permanent awareness of interventions and parenting approaches from their SafeBase training that they could use to help their child(ren).
Parents who attend the SafeBase programme will have continued access to the other support services offered by After Adoption offer. This includes a freephone, confidential helpline, family days, support, advice and counselling services where required.
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