The Granny Programme in a childrens home - promoting bonding and attachment

Babies and young children who spend long periods in Children's Homes or group care do not learn to form meaningful attachments or bonds.  This impacts on their ability to form and maintain relationships in the future, often... [ view full abstract ]

Babies and young children who spend long periods in Children's Homes or group care do not learn to form meaningful attachments or bonds.  This impacts on their ability to form and maintain relationships in the future, often leading to angry children who become angry adults.  As babies or young children we see either the "frozen" children who do not engage with adults at all but stare into space, or babies and children who attach indiscriminately, competing with other children to get to an adult and get the attention, often displaying a lot of anxiety.  The nursery environment is characterized by impersonal group care in which staff struggle to meet the basic needs of children and infants and children are raised without primary caregivers to monitor and encourage their development.  The initial relationships between infants and caregivers are strong predictors for developing attachment disorders and low self-esteem in childhood and adolescence.  In order to address this we started a "granny programme" to provide the critical one-on-one attention from surrogate grannies from the community.  Local women were trained in learning activities that stimulate physical and emotional development and provide these children with much needed individual love and attention.  They are paired with two children and spend two hours each day with each child individually.  The long-term goal is to provide the children with interim care to foster their development and to create a nurturing environment within the nursery.  Evidence from a programme evaluation shows that the practice of pairing children with "grannies" can provide skills and opportunities for children to build meaningful social connections.  It also helps them to develop greater self-confidence and self-esteem.  The impact is in stimulation of development and socialization of children, increased quality of child care in the institution and positively impacts on the grannies too.