ABSTRACT
In this chapter we will look at self-harming behaviour involving children and young people in care ± in foster care and residential provision. Self-harm in its broadest sense is highly prevalent in this group of children and young people, ranging across a wide spectrum of behaviours such as absconding, aggression, misuse of drugs and alcohol, eating dif®culties and self-cutting. Although some of these behaviours are also prevalent in the general population, they occur with more intensity and regularity in children in care. These behaviours are underpinned and driven by broader dif®culties in relating, emotion regulation (the ability to contain one's own emotions), impulse control, re¯ective function (the ability to re¯ect on the impact of one's own and others' behaviour), thinking and self-esteem (e.g. Siegel, 1999). There are many reasons as to why this may be the case, among which the most fundamental lie with the disrupted early attachments and often continued disruption in these young people's lives, which compromise opportunities for forming sustained relationships.1
