“The Meaning of the Child Interview is the most important development in the field of attachment and caregiving since the Adult Attachment Interview.”
Dr Steve Farnfield, course founder, Attachment Studies postgraduate programme, University of Roehampton, UK, co-editor ‘The Routledge Handbook of Attachment’
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‘The MotC should be seen as a fundamental assessment within child protection. It is one of the very few assessments that is able to consider how both the parent thinks and feels about their child and how the child makes them feel. It is within this area of knowledge that risks posed of serious maltreatment can be safely assessed and managed.
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The MotC should be an assessment that every social worker working with children should be able to readily utilise, it can make the difference in getting it right from wrong.’
Barry Tilzey, Consultant Practice Development Lead – London Borough of Wandsworth
For further practice endorsements click here
Praise for the Meaning of the Child Interview: Making Sense of Parent-Child Relationships
“Ben Grey’s book offers a major contribution to our understanding of the attachment relationships between parents and children and is a substantial innovation for the field. It is an invaluable resource for researchers and clinicians working with children and families. If there is one book on attachment theory you purchase this year, make it this one!”
Rudi Dallos, Emeritus Professor of Clinical Psychology, University of Plymouth UK, author of Attachment Narrative Therapy, and Don’t Blame the Parents
“Ben Grey has developed and researched the Meaning of the Child Interview over many years. The significance and reach of this compassionate and leading-edge approach to the assessment of parenting in child and family welfare practice is seen in this hugely informative, engaging and practical handbook. It outlines a clear path for how a systemic and ecological formulation of caregiving based in attachment dynamics leads to more nuanced choices for assistance and relationship repair.”
Arlene Vetere, Professor Emeritus of Family Therapy and Systemic Practice, VID Specialized University, Oslo, Norway
“As a child protection social worker, I found The Meaning of the Child Interview transformational. Ben Grey masterfully and accessibly integrates attachment, mentalising, offering a practical guide to developing rich, systemic understandings of parent-child relationships. Through illuminating case examples, this book equips social workers with invaluable tools to enhance practice and truly help children and their families.”
Richard Devine, Social Worker, UK and co-host of the Relational Activism in Social Work Podcast
“Our current child protection contexts often let down both families and practitioners, setting up both to fail. Ben Grey’s compassion shines through this book, whilst never shying away from fully considering the risks to the child or parent-child relationship. The Meaning of the Child Interview provides a meaningful alternative to current practice – it is a gift to those working with families facing adversity.”
Dr Lizette Nolte, Research Lead, Doctorate in Clinical Psychology, University of Hertfordshire, UK
“This book is essential and powerful reading for social workers, therapists and psychologists. The Meaning of the Child unlocks an understanding of attachment and caregiving for the reader and the effects of trauma and loss. The book will rightly play a part in shifting the assessment narrative on attachment to understanding and hope rather than blame and failure.”
Barry Tilzey, Assistant Director, CAFCASS (the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service, UK (earlier endorsement is from a former role)
“In this thoughtful and engaging book, Ben Grey harnesses the rich potential of the field of attachment research, moving beyond its tendency to obsess about types of individual child or adult insecurity. His work instead focuses on understanding relationships in their social environment. This enables creative, solution-oriented thinking about caregiving and relationships in child welfare practice.”
Robbie Duschinsky, Professor of Social Science & Health, Department of Public Health and Primary Care, University of Cambridge, UK
“Ben Grey and colleagues make a powerful case for recognising that relationships between parents and their children are best understood as a dynamic interplay of past histories, present socio-economic circumstances, and future hopes. It is within the context of family life that children take on meaning for their parents, and this underpins parental behaviour. Exploring the origins and nature of these meanings becomes the shared purpose of both practitioner and parent leading to safer and better relationships between caregivers and their children.”
David Howe, Emeritus Professor (Social Work), University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK
“In this manual, Ben Grey has not only succeeded in offering a compassionate and context-sensitive approach to understanding parent-child relationships, but also in elegantly charting an attachment-informed approach to qualitative analysis. This unique integration is a remarkable achievement, and I recommend it highly to all clinicians and researchers engaged in supporting parents with their challenging role.”
Dr. Mark Hudson, Clinical Psychologist and Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychology, University of Nottingham, UK
“The Meaning of the Child Interview is a sensitive, nuanced, and practical means of developing a deeper understanding of caregiver processes – bridging the research-practitioner divide. This book is the definitive guide to this assessment practice: comprehensive, informed, and drawing on the latest research and theory.”
Mick Cooper, Professor of Counselling Psychology, University of Roehampton, UK
Endorsements for the Meaning of the Child Interview (MotC) in Practice
“The MotC is incredibly helpful in our work with families, making sense of the strategies parents use to try to keep their child safe. Our team especially value the formulation model, linking parental defences to the family’s wider context, so that interventions can be targeted, addressing parents’ hopes and fears, and the deeper drivers of concerning behaviour.”
Jen Swift, Social Work Team leader, Southeast England
‘I have trained in the MotC assessment with Cambridge Centre of Attachment, and also use them to code interviews with both parents and foster carers. I have found the measure extremely useful in understanding the ‘space’ between a parent and child, and have valued being able to discuss the results with Dr Grey and Juliet Kesteven to think about the management of risk, but especially to develop a plan for therapeutic work where appropriate.
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Their skills and experience have helped me make sense of the most complex cases, and have enabled the multiagency service I lead to really help the parents and carers to find ways have an enjoyable and ‘good enough’ relationship with their children where this previously wasn’t possible.’
Elaine Sullivan – Clinical Lead, Fostering and Adoption Service Suffolk County Council
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“The Meaning of the Child Interview has proved to be one of the most powerful and informative clinical tools used in our clinical practice, and has helped make sense of some very complex cases. Dr Grey and Juliet Kesteven have a particularly engaging and effective teaching style, and a generous approach to sharing their extensive clinical and academic knowledge and experience. I would highly recommend attending training / seminars at the CCA.”
Dr Emma Hunnisett, Consultant Clinical Psychologist, Child and Family Psychology Clinic, Norwich
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I am a Social Worker and have worked in Child Protection for all of my career of 15 years and have completed a lot of training over the course of my Social Work career. I completed the Motc training with Dr Grey about 2 years ago and I loved every minute of it! It challenged me in how I thought, how I assessed families/parents and how I interpreted the information.
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The Motc Interview has given me a structured and focused assessment which has enable me to explore the relationship between the parent and child. It has given me more confidence as a professional and I feel more confident in my assessments. I cannot believe what wealth of information I have gathered using the Motc interview. I would genuinely and whole heartily recommend this training for everyone who works with families.
Social Worker, Northern Ireland
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“I trained in the Motc in 2011, and have drawn upon the tool in my work with parents and children across safeguarding and mental health services. I used the MotC in areas of parent and child risk, and it has strengthened the psychological assessments I have undertaken of complex parents within court. Both Dr Grey and Juliet Kesteven are extremely knowledgeable in understanding and assessing attachment and I have continued to attend the supervision and refresher days over the last few years to aid my work and expand my knowledge in motc and attachment.
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One of the key changes to my practice is thinking about who the driving force of change within any intervention should be, whether this be the child or parent or both. I would certainly recommend the training to those who wish to understand risk in areas of parent and child work.”
Dr Satbinder Kaur Bhogal, Clinical Psychologist, Birmingham
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‘[The MotC] was really very positive and helpful in trying got move this case forward, because it has been there for years and things had just been going round and round in circles…
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I will definitely recommend this as a very useful tool in trying to understand the parent and their relationship and attachment issues in terms of making plans and interventions as well. Sometimes you keep trying this track and it doesn’t really work, but once you’ve got the MotC and the recommendations, which in this case were positive, and we implemented the recommendations and we have positive outcomes for the children, which was the whole aim of the process. It was really helpful.’
Social Worker, Milton Keynes
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The Meaning of the Child is a powerful yet accessible tool that offers practitioners the insight to not only what kind of parents people are, but also why they do what they did. It links the parents’ own history and psychological scripts with their approach to their children, and provides a scientific evaluation of risk. I found the concepts are easy to grasp and the system can be confidently applied in real practice after a period of supported training. It is also wonderfully cost effective compared to many other assessment methods.
Fan Zhang, Assistant Psychologist, Psychology Clinic of East Anglia,
and PhD student, University of Roehampton
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“It has really opened [things] up … I have always had my doubts about, views about, but this has given me a very clear picture about what is going on at home … It has given me very good information, and something to base my assessment on.”
Social Worker, Milton Keynes
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The [Meaning of the Child Interview (MotC)] course was enlightening, and very useful way to understand the parent/child relationship.
Sharina Moretti,
Paediatric Occupational Therapist, Surrey and Hampshire.
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