Being there: a family centre worker's role as a secure base for adolescent girls in crisis

Childcare social work practice with troubled adolescent girls can benefit from drawing on attachment theory, not only as a frame-work for understanding their relationship history and current behaviour but also as a framework for defining the nature and potential value of a specific kind of relationship provided by the social worker. This paper offers an analysis of the relevance of attachment theory for work with adolescent girls, particularly models of secure and insecure attachments, and examines practice experience in a family centre setting. The young women referred to the family centre had experienced a range of adversities, including sexual, physical and emotional abuse, which had seriously affected their development. They were drifting outside the systems of family, education and local authority care, because none of these could hold onto them. The paper describes how the social worker aimed to change their internal working model by offering them a different kind of relationship experience. She provided a secure base from which they could begin to develop trust, to repair their self-esteem and to build a sense of self-efficacy – the necessary ingredients for resilience and for more successful future relationships.