Sensory Attachment Intervention with vulnerable children: How to enable carers to care for their vulnerable child

Overview

Attachment relationships are co-regulating and co-dysregulating. Caring for vulnerable children can be very challenging when they are fearful and distressed. This presentation will discuss the key principles of sensory-emotional regulation for both carer and child, and the importance of embedding regulation into everyday activities.

Recognising the intention behind the child’s behaviour, what function does it serve, will be examined from both sensory and attachment perspectives. Éadaoin will speak about the importance of understanding; the child’s lived experience of sensation and of others, how they define danger and knowing what the original source of danger was. This provides insight into the child’s world and empowers carers to meet their child’s needs in a truly meaningful way.

About the presenter

Éadaoin Bhreathnach

Éadaoin is an Occupational Therapist and Attachment Counsellor. She is a visiting lecturer on the University of Roehampton M.Sc. in Attachment Studies Course. Éadaoin has worked in the field of Developmental Trauma for 40 years. She developed her model Sensory Attachment Intervention in response to seeing children, young people and adults who were overwhelmed by the process of therapy.

Her approach is to facilitate the ability to self-regulate and co-regulate with others through embedding regulation into everyday activities and the self-reflective process. Éadaoin is the author of the Scared Gang Series and The Scared Gang Are Asked to Tell. How to Enable Narrative Expression and Affect Regulation.