For Immediate Release
Cheyenne, Wyoming
April 04, 2007

Wyoming Department of Health Urges Healthcare Providers, Parents and Caregivers to Recognize Signs of Attachment Disturbance in Fragile Children

Education event to provide information on diagnosing and healing emotional disturbances

According to the Child Trauma Academy, there are more than 20 million U.S. children who suffer from anxiety, depression, impulsivity, aggression and sleep problems, as a result of attachment disturbance. “The impact of this epidemic on the criminal justice, education and healthcare systems is staggering,” according to Lisa Brockman, RN, Medicaid Behavioral Health Programs Manager with the Wyoming Department of Health’s (WDH) Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services Division.  Consequently, the WDH and APS Healthcare are urging healthcare providers to learn to recognize the causes and understand treatment opportunities of this burgeoning public health crisis.

The Healthy Together! Health Management Program will host “Attachment Disturbance and Trauma: Development, Relationship, Diagnosis and Treatment” presented by Elizabeth Kohlstaedt, Ph.D. on May 10 from 11:30-1 via AT&T Web Meeting.

Dr. Kohlstaedt, clinical director at Intermountain Children’s Home in Helena, MT explains that attachment is the relationship between parent and child that assures the child safety and security.  This relationship acts as a secure base and allows the child to explore the larger world in safety.  Optimally the attachment relationship - the back and forth dance between parent and infant - helps the developing infant regulate its emotional responses to stressors, and serves as the internal model for all subsequent care giving relationships.

“Within the first three years of life the infant’s brain is laying down the neural tracks that will exist for the remainder of the child’s life and what happens in those early years determines how the child will respond to stress and change,” explains Dr. Kohlstaedt,   “It is not only the child’s internal experience of stress or satiation, but the parent’s response to those needs that serves as the filter through which the child views the rest of life.” 

Children with attachment disturbances typically give the worst of their disturbed feelings to those with whom they are most connected (parents) and are fine with more distant caregivers, i.e., teachers, therapists, caseworkers.  Moreover, they typically show more of their disturbance to one parent than the other.  This can be confusing and distressing to the parents and to the child, and can create a wholly unsupportive world for the parents of the child.

Dr. Kohlstaedt concludes that the soundest approaches to healing these children involve helping adults see and understand the children’s inner world.  “Children will change their behavior when caring, stable adults see the world from the child’s perspective.  It is how we as adults make sense of a child’s behavior that allows our interventions to be specific and timely, and therefore effective,” she says. 

APS is accredited by the Wyoming Medical Center Continuing Medical Education Committee to provide continuing medical education for physicians. APS designates their educational activity for a maximum of one (1) hour in Category 1 credit toward the AMA Physicians Recognition Award. Each physician should claim only those hours of credit that he/she actually spent in the educational activity.  Registered Nurses, Licensed Practical Nurses and ancillary staff are welcome to attend as CEUs have been applied for through Wyoming Hospital Association.  For more information or to RSVP please contact APS Healthcare at 307-433-0970.

Healthy Together! is offered by the Wyoming Department of Health to all Wyoming EqualityCare clients.  The program provides clients with one-on-one support from a nurse Health Coach, educational materials to encourage the self-management of their health and assistance in coordinating their care among multiple providers at no cost. Healthy Together! also provides EqualityCare clients with information on weight loss, smoking cessation and how to adopt healthy lifestyles. Healthy Together! was named the Best Government Disease Management Program by the Disease Management Association of America in 2005.