Fostering Attachment in the Face of Systemic Disruption: Clinical Treatment with Children in Foster Care and the Adoption and Safe Families Act

Abstract

The Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) neglects the clinical implications of permanency planning decisions for foster care children. The resulting decisions can undermine children's attachment-based treatment progress. The intersection of policy and practice with foster care children raises issues of ruptured attachments, communications between therapists and the larger macrolevel systems, the role of the therapist in the permanency decision process, and the impact of permanency decisions on treatment. An improved policy would promote greater coordination between clinical and court processes and would expand the criterion for permanency planning decisions to include the clinical needs of families.

Keywords:

• ASFA
• clinical practice with foster care children
• attachment interventions