Attachment

Provision and/or strategies: approaches, adjustments and specific interventions expected to be made by settings according to the ages and stages of the CYP

Universal

• Establish a secure base through consistent relationships and predictable routines.
• Embed emotional safety through familiar routines and stable environments.
• Ensure a consistent relational approach across adults to promote security and predictability and reinforce this consistency at key points throughout the day to support regulation and emotional security.
• Use clear, consistent and predictable language to support understanding, reassurance and relational safety.
• Ensure that connection is consistently available and responsive to CYP's needs, with adults responding in a calm, consistent and emotionally attuned manner to recognise and respond to connection-seeking behaviours.
• Build regular opportunities for reconnection throughout the day.
• Embed frequent, low-level relational interactions (e.g. proximity, acknowledgement, positive comments) to proactively meet connection needs.
• Scaffold transitions carefully between adults, activities, and environments, supporting separation and reunion through predictable routines.
• Pace experiences appropriately to allow trust and relationships to develop over time.
• Teach explicit social communication skills, such as gaining attention appropriately, turn-taking, and initiating interactions.
• Develop CYP's emotional regulation skills through explicit teaching and structured practice, reducing reliance on adult reassurance over time.
• Provide structured choices and graduated access to adult support to promote increasing independence.
• Provide access to a calm, safe space where CYP can regulate and reconnect when feeling overwhelmed.

Targeted

• Establish a key adult system to ensure consistent relational support and promote a sense of attachment security across the day.
• Provide frequent and predictable opportunities for connection, such as planned check-ins, meet-and-greet routines, and end-of-day reflections.
• Embed regular relational "micro-interactions" throughout lessons (e.g. brief positive comments, proximity, and acknowledgement) to proactively meet connection needs.
• Provide explicit teaching and modelling of appropriate connection-seeking and relational behaviours.
• Reinforce appropriate connection-seeking behaviours immediately and specifically, using a range of adults to strengthen generalisation (e.g. "You waited and asked for help—well done").
• Provide regular, structured opportunities to practise relational and communication strategies in supported contexts, supporting CYP to generalise these skills across different adults, contexts and environments.
• Combine the teaching of regulation strategies with adult co-regulation during moments of dysregulation.
• Provide targeted preparation for transitions, separation and other situations that may trigger connection-seeking behaviours.
• Implement small-group interventions that focus on developing relationships, belonging, and social skills.
• Use targeted interventions such as ELSA.