Page 77 - Meeting with Children Book

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based program that draws on over 50 years of
attachment research. It is often delivered as an 8-
week parent group and fundamentally views a child’s
caregiver as a potential a) a secure base from which
the child can explore and; b) a safe haven to which the
child can return to receive contact and to experience
co-regulation. The focus of the group is to fine-tune
the parent/caregiver’s ability to support both the
exploration task of the child and to increase the
availability of the caregiver to receive their child’s
call(s) for connection. Goals for the Circle of Security
group include such things as: increase the security of
attachment of the child to the caregiver; increase the
caregiver ability to accurately read their child’s cues;
increase the caregiver empathy; increase the
caregiver self-capacity to reflect; increase the
caregiver capacity to manage and regulate their own
emotional states; decrease negative caregiver
attributions regarding the child’s motivations;
increase the caregiver ability to repair and restore any
relational ruptures; and to increase the caregiver’s
ability to comfort and sooth their child when he/she is
distressed.

The Circle of Security diagram depicts the two key
roles caregivers play in their children’s lives a) a secure
base, and b) a safe haven to return to. If you were to
explore the top of the diagram first, you will note that
children will explore more fully when they have a
secure base to which to refer. Exploration plays an
extremely important role in child development
because it is through exploration that a child’s
learning occurs. The important needs associated with