My new book “Understanding the Trauma of Institutionalised Children. To support the child you adopt.” is about to come out/has just come out. Here, I want to give you a little taste of what it is about, with an excerpt:
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Bucharest Early Intervention Project
On the last day of the DI conference in Sofia, last month, we were treated to an amazing presentation by the three researchers who set up and are running the Bucharest Early Intervention Project. This is a longitudinal study done in Romania to compare the outcomes for 136 children who were placed in an institution and of whom half stayed in the institution – as they would have if the research project had not taken place – and half were placed in high quality foster care, set up by the research team. And in addition 72 children who grew up in their own families, having never been placed in care, were followed as a comparison group.
Continue reading “Bucharest Early Intervention Project”Early Childhood Intervention
When listening to Professor Frank Oberklaid talking about the ‘brain architecture being built in an hierarchical ‘bottom up’ sequence’, at the DI conference in Sofia, last month, I was struck by the methaphor he used. I have been using phrases like ‘the foundation of the brain’ and ‘when you build on a foundation with holes in it, the building won’t stand’ to explain the effects of institutionalisation on children for years now, but I had never heard anyone else use ‘architectural terms.’
Continue reading “Early Childhood Intervention”What Institutionalisation Does to Children
Many people consider institutionalisation of children not ideal, but still preferable to the alternatives. This is very unfortunate, and ultimately dangerous. Because it is one of the things that leads to institutionalisation. The reason why many people think institutionalisation is not so bad, is because they think that children’s basic needs are covered when they are put in an institution: they get food, clothes, shelter, they can wash themselves and most of the time they will get education too. The problem is that this covers only half of the basic needs. It covers what I tend to call the child’s practical needs, but not all of their physical and practically none of their psychological needs, which are just as urgent.
Continue reading “What Institutionalisation Does to Children”