Children and adolescents who are victims of neglect and abuse in their home environment can be protected by being removed from their home environment and placed in a crisis centre if they are too vulnerable to be taken into care by the state. Children aged 0 to 6 years are placed in the Palcica Crisis Centre. The experience of such events of abuse and neglect, which they face at such an early age, has a significant and important impact on both their current life and their further development, and at the same time shapes their future and adulthood. Children who are placed in the Palcica Crisis Centre have been exposed to many traumatic events in their home environment and, as a consequence, working with these children is different from working with those who have not had such experiences. More importantly, because of their experiences, these children need very safe adult responses that can make a significant contribution to the child's recovery, otherwise they can contribute equally significantly to causing retraumatisation or additional trauma. In order to ensure safe responses in the child protection system, practitioners need to be extremely vigilant in their work, backed up by appropriate knowledge. In the theoretical part, I define the key concepts of attachment theory, the meaning and impact of unsafe attachment, present key aspects of child neglect and abuse, as well as developmentally complex trauma and its symptoms and consequences. I then present the emergency removal and placement of a child in the Thumb Crisis Centre and focus on the aspect of emotionally safe responses to a child with a trauma experience.
After reviewing the literature and designing the theoretical part of my thesis, I interviewed all the employees in the Palcica Crisis Centre to identify the ways in which they respond to children's distress related to unsafe attachment patterns and developmentally complex trauma, and what skills they are equipped with. A particular focus was on attachment skills and emotionally secure responses to the child in distress.
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