SOVREMENNAYA PEDIATRIYA.2018.2(90):14-25; doi 10.15574/SP.2018.90.14

Jenifer Wakelyn
Tavistock Clinical in Haringey, London, Great Britain

Infants and young children who are taken into the care of the state are likely to have experienced multiple adversities with potential ongoing effects that may compromise their future life chances. Foster placements in early childhood provide unique opportunities to mitigate the sequelae of maltreatment: the pre-school years are a critical time frame for early intervention to prevent emerging mental health disorders from becoming persistent. However, the care given to some infants and young children in foster placements, as the result of a range of complex factors, may be under-involved, developmentally inappropriate or lacking in emotional warmth, thereby compounding the impact of early trauma. This talk describes and illustrates two linked approaches that aim to support, validate and deepen the foster carer-child relationship in order to mitigate the impact of early trauma and improve placement quality for children and their carers: therapeutic observation, based on the psychoanalytic model of infant observation, and a briefer intervention, Watch Me Play! Both are flexible and responsive ways of supporting infants and young children during legal proceedings or during a move from one placement to another . Watch Me Play! has also been found useful with children and their adoptive parents, and for birth parents who have experienced difficulties in their parenting. Links are made to contemporary neuroscience and child development research and to Freud's discussion of attention as 'observing thought', and a form of psychic energy.
Key words: vulnerable children, Foster placements, therapeutic observation, psychoanalytic model, psychological trauma.

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