SAFE®Mentor training in Vilnius

In November 2009 professionals from Latvia, Poland and Lithuania gathered in Vilnius to participate in international supervision - SAFE® Mentor training - organised by Children Support Centre, partner in Childhood without Abuse Project. The supervision was run by Dr. Karl-Heinz Brisch from Munich. SAFE®Mentor trainings are designed to prepare professionals to organise and run SAFE® Parent programmes promoting secure attachment in their own working environments.

The SAFE® programme (Safe Attachment Formation for Educators), devised by Dr. Karl-Heinz Brisch, follows parents from Week 20 of pregnancy to the end of their child's first year of life. The goal is to teach parents how to foster secure attachment with their infants, through day-long seminars, and to prevent the intergenerational transmission of trauma. The programme offers group and individual training, a video-feedback sensitivity training, a counselling hotline, and may include a specific trauma therapy.
Parents who are still experiencing unresolved trauma can receive individual trauma psychotherapy during the pregnancy, beginning with emotional stabilisation. After the birth of the baby, old traumatic experiences are specifically targeted for psychotherapy, to ensure that the old traumas are not reactivated by the baby's behaviour, and that the parents are not tempted to respond violently to the child. The programme is thus designed to enhance parent's ability to offer their child optimum sensitive interaction for the development of secure attachment.
Research in the pilot studies has shown that the SAFE® programme has promoted development of secure attachment, especially in infants of parents with unresolved trauma and even with multi-risk backgrounds.

Content of the training:
• Feelings and fantasies in pregnancy
• Antenatal bonding
• Impact of pregnancy on the couple's relationship - the transition to parenthood
• Should parents always be present?
• Bonding in infant development
• Mechanisms of the unconscious: transfer of parents‘ own traumatic experiences to the child, and the interruption of the "vicious circle"
• Emotional development of the child
• Competencies of the infant and the parents
• Dealing with behavioural abnormalities of the baby (sleep disorders, feeding problems, crying)
• Parental division of responsibilities and dealing with their own needs
• Techniques for the identification of unresolved trauma in the history of the parents and dealing with resulting trauma disorders

 

More information: www.safe-programm.de