Attachment and psychosocial adjustment of children placed in a youth protection facility
Twenty-seven children placed in a youth protection facility of the Montreal area and their main attachment figure participated in a study aimed at exploring the associations between attachment, social adjustment and several family risk factors. The assessment protocol included the main attachment figure’s sociodemographic data, psychopathology, and dissociation; history of youth protection services, and child’s adjustment measures (general, internalizing, externalizing and social problems, and dissociative symptoms). Children’s attachment representations were assessed using a Doll Play procedure (Solomon, George et De Jong, 1995). Analyses did not reveal any main effect of attachment on child’s adjustment, but the moderating effect of attachment on the association between contextual risk and adjustment was significant. Elevated contextual risk was associated with significantly more general adjustment problems, but only for Disorganized children. These results underline the importance of carefully assessing placed children’s adjustment, attachment representations, placement and maltreatment history, in order to offer them appropriate interventions.