Organizational Challenges to Implementing Attachment-Based Practices in Public Child Welfare Agencies: An Example Using the Circle of Security® Model

Does Training in the Circle of Security Framework Increase Relational Understanding in Infant/Child and Family Workers?

“…It remains unclear whether the knowledge and perspectives gained would be retained and integrated into routine work with families. The move from a theoretical approach, even one with a well‐articulated model of change, to implementation of attachment theory principles in practice is challenging (Blome et al., ; Oppenheim & Goldsmith, ). Practitioner reflective capacity was not evaluated in the current study.…”

“…The training in, and adoption of, the relational framework underpinning the COS approaches also may foster a shift in organizational culture and climate (Blome et al, ; Greenhalgh, Robert, Macfarlane, Bate, & Kyriakidou, ), offering a more sustaining environment for effective infant mental health practice in general. A relationship‐oriented culture that includes reflective supervision is crucial to providing effective mentoring and support for staff engaged in emotionally demanding work with vulnerable families of infants and young children, as such families often have complex needs (Priddis et al., ; Weatherston & Osofsky, ).…”

“…Future studies from an organizational framework could evaluate the benefits of an understanding of attachment theory principles in leadership (Blome et al., ; Davidovitz, Mikulincer, Shaver, Izsak, & Popper, ) and public policy development (Graham, Nagle, Wright, & Oser, ) to enable and support this cultural change. There has been a considerable investment in training in the COS approaches by a large number of organizations in Australia and internationally; therefore, it is important for research to examine the impacts, including inadvertent ones, of the dissemination and implementation of the COS model (Blome et al., ). Workforce capacity‐building is one fruitful area for future research, including considering how organizational characteristics can support or interfere with not only the effective delivery of attachment‐based interventions but also effective infant mental health practice more broadly.…”

Attachment-Based Clinical Work with Children and Adolescents

“…After the intervention, 46 % were insecure and 54 % were secure (Berlin et al 2008). To date, researchers have not tested the efficacy of the COS model with a randomized control group, but it is one of the few attachmentbased interventions implemented by social workers in a public child welfare agency (Blome et al 2010;Page and Cain 2009). In addition, it is in use as a dyadic intervention and has been an auxiliary treatment in a number of parent-infant intervention programs related to jail diversion (Berlin et al 2008).…”

“…They are central to the successful implementation of new programs. For example, the implementation of the COS intervention in a public child welfare agency demonstrated supervisory commitment to an EBP approach (Blome et al 2010;Page and Cain 2009). Timothy Page, the social work researcher who studied COS, stated that one mid-level supervisor was so impressed with COS-especially the model's emphasis "on strengthening parents' capacities for empathic responsiveness to their children"-that she "became the chief advocate for crossing the divide between appreciation of the program as good theory and application of the program in the agency service environment" (Blome et al 2010 p. 437).…”