Bringing hope and healing to families affected by attachment issues, one heart at a time.

A Heart’s Work was formed to provide help and support to families experiencing problems with attachment disorder, sometimes called RAD, attachment-related disorder or bonding issues. Many children suffering from these disorders were adopted into families after spending their early years in orphanages or the foster care system. Others are living with their biological families and may have experienced trauma that led to these problems.

Trauma for a child can include physical or emotional separation from their primary caregiver, especially during the first three years of life. An infant or mother may have been hospitalized, for example, or the mother deployed. Perhaps the child experienced physical pain and couldn’t accept nurturing. Mothers going through extreme stress, such as a divorce, or who are depressed sometimes withdraw emotionally from their babies. Mother's struggling with different addictions also may not be able to meet their child's needs.

When a parent, for whatever reason, is unable to affectionately facilitate emotional ties or bonds between parent and child, the child will be unable to experience a healthy attachment. Unattached children feel a deep sense of abandonment, which is expressed in behavior patterns that can lead to a variety of diagnostic labels. These include posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), bipolar, oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), and conduct disorder (CD), in addition to reactive attachment disorder (RAD), bipolar, and ADD/ADHD. Children who have suffered traumatic early relationships or events need a therapeutic and nurturing home environment to be able to heal. In this place a child can begin to develop a conscience and experience loving and remorseful feelings often for the first time. There is hope, and yes mom you can become the caregiver your child needs to be able to attach. READ MORE...