Little Susan has problems (QUALED-01-EN)

Susan - a little girl started attending kindergarden at the age of five. She has a complicated life history; she was born early and was abandoned by her biological mother immediately after birth. Due to health complications, the child remained in the hospital in the ICU, under the care of rotating staff. She did not have one particular person with her to form a relationship with. The early trauma of abandonment by the mother was compounded by trauma related to psychological deprivation.

At the age of one year, the child was discharged from hospital to residential care but was not placed with a professional family. At the age of two years, the child was placed in a foster family.

Currently, the child suffers from anxiety, has frequent aggressive behaviour, and reacts inappropriately even at the slightest stress. She does not tolerate change. She has a problem with some types of food.

The social workers started with thorough preparation of the kindergarten staff for the arrival of the child - they were informed about the child's life history, how to help her more professionally, and about appropriate procedures.

The management of the kindergarden allowed an extra-long adaptation phase, when the foster mother could be present in the kindergarten with the child, and later the time without the mother was slowly prolonged.

Activities in the nursery were planned and predictable for the child, any changes in the routine were communicated to the child in advance, on days of special activities (e.g. a concert in a place the child was not familiar with) the child stayed at home with the mother.

The child stayed at the nursery only in the morning, and was picked up by the mother in the afternoon.

The staff (including kitchen staff who are in charge of food distribution) were instructed to eliminate comments if the child refused to eat (in no case to force the child to eat).

If the child reacted under pressure of emotions when stressed, the teachers helped the child to regulate her behaviour by naming the emotion (“I see you are angry”, “You seem scared”, etc.), thus allowing the child to work better with the emotion on a conscious level.

The teachers communicated daily with the parents and, on an ongoing basis, with the psychologist at the educational-psychological counselling centre, so that they could modify their approach to the child according to hers needs.

QUALED (with consultation of Eva Stanková, special pedagogue)