The New School, Center for Attachment Research

In 2011, more than 279,000 cases of child maltreatment were reported in New York State. Adverse childhood experiences—such as neglect, abuse, and household dysfunction—are directly linked to negative effects on physical and mental health; poor educational and employment outcomes; and immense financial costs to both victims and social systems.

However, programs that intervene early to identify and effectively treat families at highest risk for child abuse can help break this pattern and curb the serious negative effects of abuse. To address this issue, The New School’s Center for Attachment Research (the Center) developed and piloted a new model of support, called Group Attachment Based Intervention (GABI), which has been shown to improve measures of child-parent attachment. NYHealth awarded the Center a grant to scale up GABI from a single pilot site in the Bronx to 10 major locations across New York State.

Under this grant, the Center finalized partnership agreements with 10 clinics to train clinicians in the model. In addition, the Center assessed each clinic’s organizational readiness and anticipated obstacles for implementing GABI, as well as developed individualized implementation action plans for them. The Center offered an orientation through an Internet-based GABI training platform that hosted a curriculum with videos and clinical materials. In addition, a two-day in-person GABI training built the clinics’ capacity to recruit participants, track referrals, and measure health outcomes. Throughout the project, the Center facilitated virtual convenings to share resources, challenges, and lessons learned. The Center also conducted analyses and an evaluation of the project and disseminated lessons learned through conferences, journal articles, and policy papers.