What is in the certification
The Attachment-Based Care Certification
Twenty-two modules. One hundred and ninety sections. Six parts.
A note on how to read this
Almost nothing here is a fact to memorise. It is a set of reframes, and each one is a moment in an ordinary day where the kind, obvious thing to do is the wrong thing, and where nothing visibly goes wrong when you get it wrong.
That is why twenty years of experience does not teach any of it.
Part one
What this work is
Why a caregiver arriving in a family is doing something more specific, and more difficult, than looking after a child.
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01
The Transition
What actually happens to a child when his mother goes back to work. Why it is a loss rather than an adjustment, why the crying in week two is usually the process working rather than failing, and the strangest thing about this job: you are the comfort and you cannot be the cure.
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02
The Village
Why shared care is the human norm and one woman alone with a baby is the recent, unusual thing. What a second attachment figure is, and why the caregiver is looking after the mother as well as the child.
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03
The Weight of This Work
What happens in a brain in the first three years, and what does not. Why it was never one moment but thousands of small ones. And the release valve: what the research on harm actually concerns, so that nobody works frightened.
Part two
Understanding children
The spine of the course. Six modules on how children actually work, each ending in something usable at four in the afternoon.
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04
Attachment and the Child's Circle
What attachment is, and why you cannot take care of a child who is not attached to you. The six ways children hold on as they grow, from the senses in the first year through to being known at six. Why he is meant to be carried, and why a caregiver is not competing with his mother.
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05
The Stress System and Co-Regulation
Why a baby has a working alarm and no brake, and where the braking comes from. Why nobody can talk a baby down, why nobody can hide their own state from him, and why holding still is not enough.
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06
Knowing This Child
Temperament as something a child arrives with rather than something anybody caused. The nine traits, the three broad types, and why the easy baby is the one who gets overlooked. Sensory profile, and what in a day winds a child up and what settles him.
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07
Emotion, Tears and Adaptation
What to do when a child is falling apart. Why some things can be changed and some have to be grieved, what the tears of futility are, and the three kind things to say that get in the way. Why aggression is emotional rather than behavioural.
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08
Limits, Counterwill and Leading with Warmth
Why an attached child still needs limits, and why warmth without leadership is the failure mode nobody warns a nanny about. Counterwill, and why she gets resistance to everything for weeks. Holding a limit without withdrawing. Hitting and biting, and what to do in the four seconds after.
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09
Play, Outdoors and Emergence
Why true play cannot be commanded, and why boredom is almost never a shortage of things to do. Development on the floor rather than in seats. And getting outside, which changes a day more than anything else available.
Part three
The caregiver herself
One module, and it is the one no other course has.
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10
The Caregiver as Instrument
A child borrows the state of whoever is holding him, which makes a caregiver's own condition part of the equipment rather than a private matter. What her own childhood taught her about crying. The moment on day nine when nothing works and nobody is watching. Being touched out. And what she needs in order to keep doing this well.
Part four
The work
Seven modules on the actual days.
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11
Collecting, Bridging and Matchmaking
The three practices used every day. Getting a working connection before asking for anything. Preserving a relationship across a separation. And how new attachments are built through existing ones.
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12
Coming Into a Family
The first meeting, and why she should not go to the baby. A week-by-week settling-in protocol. Why a regulating behaviour can only be replaced rather than removed. And the first day alone.
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13
Rhythm, Routine and the Shape of the Day
Why a rhythm is not a schedule, why nobody can force a baby to sleep, and how to work a rhythm inside a schedule somebody else set.
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14
Normal Infant Sleep and the Standard
What normal actually is, in numbers. Where the standard everybody measures against came from, and why it describes a different kind of baby. Sleep pressure and the body clock. And why none of it is the caregiver's decision.
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15
Naps
The sleep work that is genuinely hers. Wake windows and tired cues. The nap environment. Contact naps and the transfer. What to do when it is not happening. Short naps, nap transitions, and swaddling.
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16
Feeding
Where the line sits: what happens at the breast is not hers, what passes through her hands is. Paced bottle feeding. Handling expressed milk. Solids and readiness. Choking, gagging, and the difference that matters at speed.
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17
Touch, Babywearing and Contact
Touch as a primary need rather than an extra. Deep pressure inside ordinary care. Consent in daily handling. Carrying position, and the safety rules that go with it.
Part five
Working inside a family
Four modules on the part that ends placements.
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18
The Triangle
Who decides what. How to decline something without making a parent feel judged. How to raise a concern. Reporting honestly, including the bad days. What never leaves the house. And what a caregiver can reasonably ask for in order to sustain the work.
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19
The Mother You Are Working For
Why almost everything that will feel personal is not about her. What a mother struggling in the first year actually looks like from inside the house, what a caregiver does about it, which is smaller than people expect, and the clear lines around what is never hers.
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20
Whose Normal Counts
Working inside a household that does things differently. What is safety and what is difference. How to ask rather than assume.
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21
Safety, Scope and What You Notice
Every hard safety line in one place. The habit of describing what she saw and never naming a condition. What is visible at naptime that a doctor will never see. And when to call emergency services before calling a parent.
Part six
Closing
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22
The Weight of This Work
What she now reads differently. Why reliability matters for a reason bigger than professionalism. And why the practices are not the thing: behaviour does not predict the quality of a relationship, and a caregiver who does every practice with a child she has not connected with has done the form of the job and none of it.
How it works
Recorded, written out, and tested as she goes
Each module is recorded, and written out as a PDF to download and keep.
There are questions at the end of every section, and they must be answered before the next section opens. They are not definitions. Most of them are a moment from an ordinary day with four ways of reading it.
What it does not cover
- It does not teach first aid or CPR, and it cannot. Choking response is a hands-on skill and it has to be taught with somebody's hands. Every caregiver should hold it and every family should ask for the certificate.
- It is not a qualification to work with children. It is an approach, for somebody already doing this work.
- It does not qualify anyone to diagnose anything, in a child or an adult.
- And it is not accredited. There is no accrediting body for nannies in Canada and no protected title. This is our own standard, it carries Lauren's name, and the code of conduct is public so you can read exactly what it means.
The certification
Twenty-two modules, in six parts.
On completion she is Trained in Attachment-Based Care, and she has committed to the Isla-Grace Standard.
The Attachment-Based Care Certification is Isla-Grace's own standard. It is not accredited, it is not a qualification to work with children, and it does not replace first aid, CPR, or any check or clearance required where you live.
