Loyalty Conflicts for Children Separated from a Parent/Parents

with Christina Enright, Psychotherapist and Attachment Specialist

Thursday 8th October, 7pm to 9pm

Online via Zoom

For Foster Carers and practitioners throughout the country

To Book You Place: email Katherine on learning@ifca.ie

Course Overview:

Children who experience relational disruption either through parental separation or admission into foster care, will struggle to understand and manage the conflicts that can arise for them within the relationships with different adults who themselves may have difficulty managing their relationships and staying focused on the needs and emotional wellbeing of the child. This course has been designed for parents/carers to be aware of the impact on a child when they become triangulated and embroiled in the acrimonious relationships of adults around them.

Learning Outcomes:

• What is a loyalty conflict for a child experiencing parental separation?
• Family dynamics that lead to loyalty conflicts for children;
• How and why a child experiences a loyalty conflict;
• What research says about the long-term harmful impact of loyalty conflict on a child’s psychological and emotional wellbeing;
• The concept of mentalization and how it relates to parenting;
• Exploring loyalty conflicts with children;
• Helping children to understand and manage their feelings around loyalty conflict, particularly feelings of guilt;
• The importance of well-structured and supervised access for children in foster care to shield the child from being pulled into the conflict;
• The importance of parents/carers getting support when children have ongoing struggles with loyalty conflict.

About Christina Enright

RN, BSc Psychology, Dip in Family Therapy, MA Child Psychotherapy, Dip Clinical Supervision. Over the past 20 years, Christina has worked as a psychotherapist with traumatised children, adolescents, and birth parents as well as with foster carers and adoptive parents. Her experience includes the development of a multidisciplinary clinical service for families experiencing trauma and attachment problems who were reluctant to engage with main-stream social care and mental health services. From 2015-2017 Christina provided trauma consultancy to the clinical team developing a children’s service within the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) in the UK.

Christina’s special interest is in early childhood development and the impact of trauma on a child’s developing capacities, functioning and behaviour. From her experience working with children who have endured developmental trauma characterised by neglect and abuse, she has found it necessary to use a comprehensive integrated approach in order to address the multiple complexities which such children present with. Christina returned to live in Ireland in 2016 and currently works as a Developmental Trauma and Attachment specialist providing training, assessment and clinical interventions on behalf of Tusla Child and Family Agency and in independent practice with birth and adoptive families. She also delivers training on child development, trauma and attachment both within the NHS and other education and social care systems across the UK and Ireland.