Introduction

The concern about attachment to new families has several strands each underpinned by the problem of focus. Most child and adult mental health services and allied professionals are familiar with the term attachment as a shorthand for what John Bowlby developed and then termed attachment theory. Widening the focus from the child to the system, one brings into view the carers, the wider corporate parent, and the child’s history with his biological parents as integral to his present experience and solution to the difficulties seen by the adults. The guiding principle behind the corporate parent is that when a child is taken into State care, all those working for the State “should demand no less for each child in care than they would for their own children”. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.