Promoting Attachment and Mentalization for Parents and Young Children in the Foster Care System: Implementing a New Training and Treatment Approach in an Agency

Creating a school‐based mental health program to meet the needs of children in underserved communities and schools: The Derner Hempstead Child Clinic

“…The recognition of a need for a nested mentalization frame stems from the realization that student therapists who work with traumatized children who face many adversities in life and are distrustful and/or highly reactive to others-as well as their supervisors-need additional support. The nested mentalization frame has been extended by Cohen and her colleagues (Cohen, 2016;Cohen et al, 2016) in their work with children in foster care to include the foster parent in the mentalization process and by Eppler-Wolff et al (2019, who stressed the need to include teachers in the mentalization process of SBMH intervention programs. The use of the WT processing technique at the DHCC has helped to meet the need for multiple levels of holding experiences, notably the need of the child to feel held by the therapist, the therapist by the supervisor, the supervisor by the supervising team, and the supervising team by the administration of the clinic.…”

“…The recognition of a need for a nested mentalization frame stems from the realization that student therapists who work with traumatized children who face many adversities in life and are distrustful and/or highly reactive to others—as well as their supervisors—need additional support. The nested mentalization frame has been extended by Cohen and her colleagues (Cohen, 2016; Cohen et al., 2016) in their work with children in foster care to include the foster parent in the mentalization process and by Eppler‐Wolff et al. (2019, 2020), who stressed the need to include teachers in the mentalization process of SBMH intervention programs.…”

Bringing a psychoanalytic treatment approach into a foster care agency: Challenges faced and gains made

“…To many at the agency, a psychodynamic model represented an outdated method of therapy that was not applicable to a population with disrupted attachments. Initially, the caseworkers and the therapists had many questions about the model (Cohen, et al., 2016). Since our goal was to provide an environment in which the mothers would not be criticized or told what they should and should not be doing, many did not imagine how “being with” could facilitate any change at all.…”

“…Families with children in or at‐risk of being removed and placed in foster care are typically referred to the BB Program by a lawyer, caseworker, or family court judge (Cohen, P., 2016). Many of the parents are seeking reunification with their children, yet BB therapists are not mandated to make recommendations or reports to the courts on anything other than attendance in the treatment, when requested.…”