“HEADS IN SAND” ANGERS FABS

FOUNDER.

“I am gutted.”

A strong and heartfelt statement from the New Zealand founder of the FABS Trust (Family Attachment, B.A.S.E. and S.A.F.E.) Augustina Driessen, who this week spoke about her feeling of dismay in the face of Government indifference to the anti-abuse programmes administered by the Trust.

“The ministers are putting their heads in the sand,” she said. “They are looking at programmes which patch-up rather than preventative programmes like ours.”

Augustina, a Bay of Plenty child psychotherapist, claims that the “powers-that-be” don’t comprehend what is really needed to put a stop to NZ’s horrific child abuse. Nor, she went on to say, do many front-line social workers.

“Our SAFE (Secure Attachment Formation Education) programme is the only one we know of being offered in this country which is an ambulance at the top of the cliff rather than at the bottom .. because it is for parents-to-be … both the mother and the father .. from when they are about 24 weeks pregnant to when their baby is a year old. It is a programme which enhances secure attachment (bonding) enabling not only the parents to form a deep attachment with their baby but for the baby to be able to reciprocate. Often people are not aware that it can take up to a year for a secure attachment to cement between the infant and its primary caregivers.”

When studying with world renown authority on Attachment, Dr Karl Heinz Brisch, Augustina saw for herself the power of the SAFE programme. (Dr Brisch MD, is the head of the Department of Pediactric Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy at the Children’s Hospital at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich.)

“ I have seen it work in Germany with at-risk parents who took part in the programme. They gave up the drugs and alcohol which had played such a huge part in their lives, in order to care for their child. They expressed their amazement at what they were learning … and how they were learning to understand how vital secure attachment is for the development of their child and for them as parents.

“After all, emotional nurturing is as important as breathing air and drinking water …without it we die.”

“Nothing,” she said adamantly, “nothing will change in this country unless we put these preventative programmes in place. Everything will continue to spiral downwards; I believe we are now into the fourth generation of parents who haven’t experienced secure attachment themselves. Many have suffered trauma and therefore can have flash-backs in which they are at risk of harming their own babies.”

Using the well-known late NZ writer Barry Crump as an example of intergenerational abuse she said: “We all know of Barry Crump. We know about the horrific abuse he suffered at the hands of his father and how that impacted deeply on his adult life. He was unable to form emotional attachments with partners or with the children he fathered. And no doubt his father had suffered abuse when he was a child. It can continue on and on.”

S.A.F.E. modified:

Another visit to Munich last year enabled Augustina and Dr Brisch to work on a modified version of S.A.F.E. specifically for prospective foster and adoptive parents. She sees this as a vital programme for these people.

“If people who wanted to foster took part in this programme they would really understand what was needed when dealing with their foster child who are all too often very traumatized children who tend to get pushed from foster home to foster home when the foster parents can’t cope with their behaviour . It would also really assist parents who adopt too, to form a close bond with the new baby or older child.

“Paula Bennett has been informed about our programmes; she needs to support them because they will make a difference.”

B.A.S.E.

The Trust’s other programme, a school and kindergarten based programme which develops empathy in the children taking part, is running in several Bay of Plenty schools, kindergartens, pre-schools and Augustina reports that Dr Brisch has expressed his admiration for the way that it is being run in NZ.

A weekly programme involving children from the ages of three to six, it involves a mother or father and their infant attending the class once a week (or fortnightly) for 20 to 30 minutes. The children sit in a circle around the parent and baby with the parent being with the child as he/she would at home. The class teacher follows the protocol of “doing; thinking; feeling”

“BASE is NOT a developmental programme. It is NOT an educational programme. It is all about the interaction between the mother/father and baby … it teaches the children involved that other people have feelings which differ from their own, it teaches empathy. Teachers report that it enhances learning skills and helps the children to be more caring for others.

“Unfortunately we are tending to come up against people who have been trained in the protocol but who now want to carry out the programme their own way. Although we are flexible the protocol must be adhered to for the programme to work successfully.”

Spending two and half weeks in further training with Dr Brisch in Munich in September meant that Augustina then had to hold more training days here in NZ for F.A.B.S. members who had completed previous training. There have been a few changes in the BASE programme … the infants do not have to be brand-new, they can be older as long as they can be contained within the circle of children. And Dr Brisch is very clear on what the programme naturally focuses on … the mother/father/infant relationship.

“Our DVD is now out and on sale for $20,” Augustina said. “This is a worthwhile DVD for anyone involved with children to have.”

“Overall, I am delighted with the way we have managed to go into schools, train the teachers in the protocol of BASE and get it up and running with very little money at our disposal. And I am thrilled with the way the schools and kindergartens have responded and how the children are benefiting.

“Their verbal language is improving. For example, when the children first begin the programme they often cannot verbilise what they are wanting to say. The teacher would ask “what do you think the baby is feeling?” The children would put their hands up, eager to share but then not be able to formulate. But it isn’t long before the children can put their thoughts clearly into words and share their own ideas, their own observations, their own feelings . It is magic to witness. They observe what is happening and are able to express it.

“I find it quite profound when I see children between three and six able to do this.”

The children, she remarked, become more aware of the needs of others.

“In one class I attended a little girl in front of me noticed I couldn’t see the mother and baby and moved aside so that I could. She was about five or six.

That is a great example of the empathy which is developed in the children who take part in this programme. It changes their inner world.”

Fund raising:

“ However, we constantly struggle to raise enough money,” Augustina said sadly.

“ We desperately need someone to carry out fund-raising for F.A.B.S. on a voluntary basis. That would be wonderful.”

Principal/Director of Christina Productions, Gaye Hemsley, used the dance school’s Spring Concert held in September as a fund-raiser for F.A.B.S. And coming up sometime soon will be another giant garage sale organized by the F.A.B.S. volunteer group … similar to the one the group held two years ago.

But the Trust needs financial help to enable it to put these essential programmes in place throughout New Zealand. All too many children in this country are living in fear, beaten, hurt, unloved; in turn they become adults who hurt and abuse. It’s no good for us to “tut tut’ and then turn away. Each and every one of us can and must take action to make New Zealand a safe haven for our children.

And one of the best ways to do this is to support the F.A.B.S. Trust in any way we can so that it can establish S.A.F.E. and B.A.S.E. throughout the country and…

MAKE A DIFFERENCE