Conference Agenda

This paper details a UK clinical programme that offers early intervention to adopted toddlers and their parents, via a six-month long, psychoanalytically- and attachment-informed parent-child psychotherapy group for toddlers and their parents. It examines Parental Authority (PA), a specific mechanism of change observed in the group, which contributes to the development of secure attachment relationships between parents and their newly adopted children. We have developed the concept of PA over seven years of running the APTG in partnership with Adopt London South. Chorus groups were expanded in 2025 to cover adoptive families across London..

The paper will:

• Set the context of UK adoption, as the final step for children removed from their biological parents’ care due to abuse or neglect, and the attachment challenges these maladaptive experiences present.

• Outline the psychoanalytically- and attachment-informed approach of the APTG which is rooted in the Anna Freudian parent-toddler group approach.

• Detail and evidence the concept of PA, with attention to the adoption context, including the experiences of parents that bring them to adopt, families’ experience of the broader social care system, and the impact of caring for a toddler who has experienced maltreatment.

• Use composite case studies to illustrate how attachment relationships change as PA improves.

• Present quantitative and qualitative data which demonstrate the correlation between PA and improved attachment relationships, and highlights parents’ experiences of building PA.

• Conclude with reflections on why early preventive, attachment-informed interventions for families where children have experienced developmental trauma are so needed.

We want to share our project as an example as an application of theory and practice at the start of family life with alternative carers, and how this early intervention method makes a significant difference to the attachment relationships within the family, with the potential to improve outcomes for the child throughout their lifespan.

Childhood care memories and the emotional regulation provided by parental figures can be relevant factors in parental involvement in young people's life projects (LP). However, the involvement of parental figures of young people in residential care (RC) can be particularly compromised in at-risk families, which makes the issue mostly relevant, given the need for early intervention. This study aims to analyse the association between childhood care memories, emotion regulation, and parental involvement in youths’ LP in the parents of youths in RC. It also pretends to explore the mediating role of emotion regulation in the association between childhood memories of parental care and the parental involvement in youths’ LP. The sample consisted of 91 parental figures of young people living in generalist RC facilities in Portugal (77.8% female) aged between 31 and 73. Data collection was through self-report questionnaires (Early Memories of Warmth and Safeness Scale - EMWSS; Affect Regulation Checklist - ARC; Parental Involvement in Life Projects Questionnaire – QEV-PV). The results indicate a positive association between the variables under study and verify the total mediating effect of adaptive reflection (emotion regulation) on the relationship between care memories and parental involvement in young people’s LP. Males presented greater adaptive reflection compared to females. Parents with lower educational levels showed higher emotional suppression and dysregulation, whereas individuals with medium to high educational levels demonstrated greater involvement in young people’s LP than those with lower levels of education. The results will be discussed in the light of attachment theory and the relevance of childhood memories and emotional regulation in the parental involvement in the youth’s LP. This discussion aims to explore the practical implications of promoting parental care and involvement, preventing family situations of risk, and highlighting the need to create specific programmes for parents of young people in RC contexts.

In Italy, adoption crises and failures, both national and international, occur only marginally immediately after pre-adoptive placement, but explode several years later. Adolescence is the period most at risk for crises to erupt, as demonstrated in the literature, this delicate stage of development is more at risk of breakdown than the bonds and relationships experienced during childhoods.

By presenting research data conducted in Italian Court in 2022, the author tries to show a snapshot of this reality both in quantitative and qualitative terms. The analysis will focus on the data collected, and on the variables that come into play in adoption crises both from the perspective of the professionals working there, the family and the minors.

The data shows that in 54.5% of cases the child does not recognize himself or herself as the child of those parents, an aspect that highlights an obstacle in the process of building the adoptive bond.

Adoption crises and failures evolve, in almost all cases (95.5%) with the children’s re-admission into the community, a worrying fact that requires significant change.

The author, working in adoption situations also in the Court of the Lazio region, focuses on several aspects that can have preventive value:

- The importance of helping parents delve deeper into their attachment history to encourage and enhance the positive aspects that may emerge and to become more aware of the potential difficulties over time;

- The importance, of professional being aware of the children’s attachment wounds and fractures, their ways of expressing themselves in relationship and of the difficulties they may cause

- The importance of supporting co-building with interventions that are appropriate in terms of both timing and expertise.

Autonomy is an important relational aspect in the growth of the child, where the parental function is fundamental. The author, who deals with supporting adoptive parenting in the post-adoptive period, highlights both its value and the difficulties encountered when this aspect is missing in the development of the adopted child.

The adoptive parent may not adequately assess this aspect and may often confuse it with attempts at independence that the child brings with him for his previous history.

It is a complex and delicate theme, which concerns, for the child, attachment, trust in the relationship, for the parent how they feel and live the child's autonomy and how their pose thereself with respect to it.

The use of video becomes essential to show the adult how to support autonomy, especially when the child tends to claim an independence to which the needs of life have forcibly accustomed him. I'm talking about adopted children at an age that can range from 5 to 10-12 years.

It is important to observe the moments of play through the video, as the interactive aspect of the game is of great help because it allows you to observe through the construction of the story how the parent will move or align with what the child creates. It is also important to observe the language used by the adult, the change of the proposed events. This allows you to see if the parent can let themselves be accompanied in a narrative of the child or feels the need to affirm his presence. It also allows us to see how much the child tends not to be autonomous, but to be independent: if he takes into account the presence of the other, if he includes, or changes his narration.