Text Box: Recent years have seen unprecedented progress in the field of neuroscience, including significant research into the effects of maltreatment on children. We know now that abuse, neglect and exposure to extreme stress – as happens when a child witnesses domestic violence – can have profound effects on brain functioning and development. Chronic and severe neglect can impair a child’s cognitive development and ability to bond. Trauma and the stress of pervasive threat can over-stimulate a child’s fear system causing her to over-react to seemingly minor stimuli, and undermine her ability to manage emotions, use reason to solve problems, and form relationships with caregivers and peers. At People Places, our primary focus

Text Box: since 1973 has been to provide family-based care and treatment for children whose experiences of abuse and neglect have caused serious emotional and behavior problems. Our approach has been to combine strong support to caregivers with learning-based interventions designed to help children develop positive, adaptive social skills. When it works right, that approach helps our “Teaching Parents” to persevere through the stress of caring for a child who has learned to mistrust anyone in a parenting role. It also helps create the stability and structure our children need in order to risk learning new responses to a world that has taught them to respond to it with fear and anger. As we have followed developments in the neuroscience of abuse and neglect, it is gratifying to see that our basic approach is on target. The literature rather consistently describes the journey for maltreated children as a learning process that is nurtured primarily through relationships. Recovery work is broken out into three broad stages: safety and stabilization, emotional regulation and skill development. In therapeutic foster care or adoption, the family’s first challenge is to create safety and a predictable structure without resorting to coercion or giving in to anger which may trigger and reinforce a traumatized child’s fear response. We work with families to develop clear routines and simple behavior plans to reinforce cooperation. In our preservice train

Text Box: ing for Teaching Parents we address “Pure Descriptive Praise” and “Positive Scan” as means to encourage rather than coerce adjustment to the family routine. The next recovery challenge for a Teaching Parent family is to create an authentic relationship with the child so that she can learn to seek - and find - comfort from others and ultimately learn to comfort herself in times of stress. To this end, we promote the skill of “Easy Listening” in preservice and ask each Teaching Parent to do daily one-to-one “Positive Time” with the child in their care. If a child can connect emotionally with a calm and nurturing caregiver, she can “learn” what those states feel like and begin to develop the capacity to reach them herself. In other words, to regulate her emotions. The last stage of recovery work is skill development. Through the use of in-home behavior plans, individual counseling and group training, we work on the development of social competencies from several angles. Groups have been particularly effective in this. They offer well-monitored socialization opportunities for youth who have trouble making friends, and provide a supportive arena for focused learning.

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