This interactive course runs continuously, so you can sign up at any time. It offers five hours of self-directed online learning which you can undertake at a time, pace and location that suits you.

You will have access to the course and its materials for one year. Access begins the day after you’ve booked, when you will receive your account details by email.

This mini course is also available as part of the Understanding and Nurturing Troubled Children course bundle, a convenient option that offers one year’s access to four complementary courses.

This course will allow you to:

• identify the positive benefits of ‘healthily stressful’ experiences, which can build resilience, as well as empathic, attuned parenting, and the ability to reflect on mental states
• learn what happens when early experiences are too stressful, and how adaptive coping strategies can become unhelpful defences in the longer term
• gain an understanding of the four main kinds of attachment relationship, how these attachment styles form, and why – with reference to a number of key studies
• examine the role of attachment in personality development, and the link between attachment patterns and states of mind

There are no specific requirements for the course, although we suggest you are working with, or have an interest in working with children, or want to learn more about the effects of difficult early experiences on children’s minds and behaviours.

There’s a multiple choice question assessment at the end of the course, which provides access to your Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust CPD certificate upon completion.