People often ask: What can I do to help this child?
This is an interesting question.
Which of the following statements best reflects the answer you would like to receive to this question, were you asking it?
- This is what you are doing wrong.
- This is what you should be doing.
- This is what you are doing right!
Which are you more likely to keep doing over time:
- What you already know and do, that is helpful for the child in you care?
- A completely new regime of care and management strategies?
The Triple-A approach confines itself to conventional care and relational strategies.
That is, it confines itself to what you already do and what you already know, even if that knowing and doing is implicit – that is, you do it without always being consciously aware of it.
The Triple-A approach selects particular aspects of caring and relating that provide strong foundations for the child’s development and asks you to do them consciously (that is, thoughtfully) and in an organised and ordered (that is predictable) way.
Triple-A is an enrichment process, rather than a behaviour change process.
Triple-A involves promoting three key (that is, needed) experiences that children who are raised in stable and loving homes have from infancy and which satisfy their needs and lay the foundations for a successful and satisfying life:
- That adults in a caregiving role are accessible (Parents hover and check on with regularity and frequency and return after separations)
- That adults in a caregiving role are understanding (Baby gets fed, cuddled, changed, burped, played with without having to ask)
- That adults in a caregiving role are emotionally connected (When baby is sad/happy, parents are sad/happy)
Put another way, Triple-A promotes experiences that adults in a caregiving role are physically, emotionally and cognitively connected with them.
In doing so, Triple-A enriches the child’s experience of reparative aspects of caregiving and relating that strengthen the child and the foundations upon which all future growth occurs.
For more information about the Triple-A Model of Therapeutic Care email me at colby@securestart.com.au
Attachment and Resilience 