Presenters: Joanne Dechief - Manager and Therapeutic Specialist, Great Southern Trauma Counselling Services and Trauma Informed Practice Pilot Project. Abstract: This presentation will explore how healthy loving attachments form in infancy from a neurobiological perspective, exploring how attuned parental care influences brain development so children learn how to love and be loved. We will then explore how early childhood trauma alters the development of attachment, that creates an alternative sense of what love is, and thereby impacts on how traumatised children form relationships, and the challenges that arise. Two case studies will be introduced. Both look at the various manifestations of attachment issues and the different behaviours that made forming attachments with these children challenging. The presentation will explore the theoretical underpinnings that formed assessment and discuss therapeutic interventions and approaches used, so both of these children could learn to love. The assessment process involves taking a thorough life history and tracking traumatising events along the developmental pathway to form a therapeutic plan. Interventions are applied starting at where the child is neurologically in their development, as opposed to their biological age. Carers of foster children are included as part the intervention strategy. Carers are educated in, and encouraged to adopt a therapeutic parenting approach, so the new parental child interactions never replicate the traumatising experiences from the family of origin, and still support the child to build much needed life and relationship skills. Therapeutic activities revolve around attachment building and co-regulation, eventually moving to the final phase of therapy, making positive meaning of who the child is now. Understanding how the early nurturing process enables us to have care and compassion for others throughout our lives, also enables us to develop these same skills in children who have not had the opportunity through their early child relationships of learning to love and be loved.