Self-taught: Attachment and Caregiving-based Practice using the MotC

A self-taught course. Start at any time and work through it at your own pace.

Redesigned to accompany the publication of The Meaning of the Child Interview: Making Sense of Parent-Child Relationships, edited by Ben Grey (Palgrave Texts in Counselling and Psychotherapy, 2026).

This course requires the Introduction to the MotC (Principles of Practice), or previous MotC training. The coding course, or previous full MotC training, is recommended but not required.

The equivalent of two days of teaching on using the MotC as a model for applying attachment and caregiving theory in child welfare, safeguarding or mental health practice. It offers practitioners a way of thinking with the families they work with about the difficulties they meet, and of arriving at solutions together. Report writing and giving feedback to parents are also covered.

Course tutors: Dr Ben Grey and Juliet Kesteven.

How the course is taught

Teaching is through course materials and videos recorded from live training. There is no live teaching and no end date: participants move forward at their own pace.

What the course covers

The approach of the MotC is not to provide a diagnosis of generalised pathology, but to build an in-depth understanding of resources and difficulties in the context in which they occur, from which to think about support, intervention and, in some cases, risk. The course focuses on using what is learned from the MotC, from case history and from practice observation to think about families and how to help them. It does not teach or recommend any particular therapeutic approach; it supports practitioners, in whatever service or context they work, in using the MotC to make sense of parent-child relationships so that they can make the best use of the tools, powers and resources available to them.

In both forensic and therapeutic settings, the MotC can bring to light the positive intentions of parents to offer love and nurture to their children; give insight into the obstacles a relationship faces, in particular the impact of traumatic experience; and guide work with parents to tackle problems in their lives and their parenting, rather than blaming them for complex and multi-faceted difficulties. A more systemic and relational understanding of risk and of mental health can contribute to the broadest possible understanding of the challenges faced by everyone concerned with the welfare of a particular child or adult, without glossing over the need for effective action where that is warranted. Studies of the Norfolk PIMAP project show how a formulation-based approach of this kind can achieve significant reductions in children coming into care and in the need for child protective services among children at high risk of removal, while also supporting better decisions around risk.

Therapeutically, the MotC approach has been directly incorporated into Attachment Narrative Therapy (see Dallos, ed., Attachment Narrative Therapy: Applications and Developments, Palgrave Macmillan, 2022) and Sensory Attachment Intervention (see Bhreathnach, Grey and West, ch. 14 in The Meaning of the Child Interview, 2026), among other approaches, but can be used to inform all those working with parents in any medium.

Accreditation

Participants do not need to be reliable coders of the MotC. For those who are, and who have been coding for more than a year, the course can lead to accreditation as an experienced coder of the MotC, on submission of a coding report and confirmation of peer support and CPD arrangements.

Booking and access

Tickets are paid securely by credit or debit card. A reduced rate is available to students, to those who are unwaged, and to those returning to the course as a refresher. If you need us to invoice your employer, or would prefer to pay by bank transfer, please email enquiries@attachment.services.

You will get an automatic confirmation email on booking. Access instructions are sent out by us personally at the first available opportunity, usually within a few days, though occasionally a little longer over holiday periods. Please bear with us.

Cancellation

Should Cambridge Centre for Attachment need to cancel a training for any reason, a full refund will be issued.

Further information about the MotC is at meaningofthechild.org.