Therapeutic Foster Care

Early adverse childhood experiences are imprinted in the brain as unnarrated sensations. Even when these children and young people are away from any danger and with a safe, connected foster or adoptive parents who work with the Connect B4 Correct therapeutic parenting approach the sensation of THREAT, the alarm in the child or young person can still ring loudly, cutting off all links to the higher thinking brain that can moderate behaviours. When new external sensory information occurs, such as the sound of water running, as in the example of trauma occurring in relation to bath time, then the brain seeks out the ‘Cluster” of stored associated sensations and finds i.e. the ‘Bath Cluster’.  In the ‘Bath Cluster’ however, is the THREAT member, from when the child or young person’s head was held under water.  Perceiving THREAT, the bodies internal alarm switches on and the body prepares for THREAT! Flooded with ‘reactive’ chemicals there is no time too ‘think’ - survival is paramount. Connect B4 Correct help foster or adoptive parent understand that there is no THREAT in the turning the tap on, but the child and/or young person experiences it as a THREAT, so they present responding behaviours to the THREAT that can then be perceived as ’naughty’ – impacting on how the foster or adoptive parent responds. Connect B4 Correct help foster and adoptive parents develop connecting strategies to being safety back to the child and young person’s alarm system that allows their behaviours to calm down and their brains to become accessible to reflection and modification.

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