ABFT Special Topics Series
Providing Attachment-Based Care in Inpatient and Residential Programs: Teamwork is Key!
Speakers:
Ilse Devacht, Suzanne Levy, PhD, & Brianna Brennan, LMFT
90-min webinar recorded on June 3, 2025 as part of ABFT Special Topics Series.
ATTACHMENT BASED CARE FOR TEAMS (or ABC4T) is an innovative milieu team training program, designed to engage all team members in providing attachment-based care for troubled young people and their families. This comprehensive program includes a pre-training situation and needs analysis, three days of immersive whole-team training and a sustainability phase.
The ABC4T framework is family centered aiming to support the implementation of Attachment Based Family Therapy (or ABFT) into inpatient care. Here is what the ABC4T program offers:
- A Relational Focus: Drive clinically relevant change for young people and their families
- Empowering Families: Equip parents be a secure base for their children, fostering autonomy and competency
- Shared Knowledge: Develop a common language on attachment and learning theory
- Practical Skills: Provide all team members with the tools they need to succeed.
- Collaborative Processes: Apply an attachment-based lens to team dynamics and collaboration
With over a decade of experience in developing and training teams in ABC4T, we are excited to share our international journey. Learn how we have adapted, evolved, and strengthened the program to meet diverse needs and circumstances.
The target audience for this webinar includes any professional involved in a mental health team, such as administrators, doctors, educators, nurses, therapists, line and support staff. Mental health programs include inpatient, residential, partial hospital, day treatment facilities, and large-scale outpatient organizations.
As a result of this program, participants will:
- Identify the components of the ABC4T program, based on current insights from attachment and learning theory
- Explain how these foundations translate into concrete shared practices within the team
- Describe the importance of navigating the parallel processes between connection, autonomy and competency issues for care users as for team members and teams.
- List facilitating factors and obstacles when implementing ABC4T internationally (hybrid format)
Ilse Devacht works as a family therapist in a residential therapeutic unit for middle childhood children at UPC KU Leuven. She is a clinical psychologist, CBT therapist, trainer and supervisor, narrative therapist and an accredited Attachment Based Family Therapy (ABFT) therapist, trainer and supervisor. She has developed a milieu framework for interdisciplinary teams, Attachment Based Care for Teams (ABC4T), in collaboration with her team, the ABFT Belgium team and ABFT International team. The program aims to support family work in restoring attachment ruptures between caregivers and kids and to create a secure learning environment for vulnerable youth and their families to rebuild trust in help and care.
Suzanne Levy, Ph.D., is an internationally renowned licensed clinical psychologist and co-developer of ABFT. Previously she was the Executive Director of Strategic Initiatives and Training of the ABFT Training Program at Drexel University’s College of Nursing and Health Professions. Since 2007, Dr. Levy has been conducting ABFT training workshops and supervision for therapists nationally and internationally. She has presented regionally, nationally, and internationally on ABFT, emotion coaching, child and adolescent therapies, resilience, adolescent depression, adolescent development, and adolescent substance use.
Brianna Brennan, LMFT, is is a certified Attachment-Based Family Therapist who specializes in working with adolescents and families. Brianna received her graduate training in Philadelphia at Thomas Jefferson University and has experience working in a variety of clinical settings ranging from intensive day treatment and in-home family-based therapy to outpatient client care. Brianna works with ABFT International as a supervisor and trainer in training and is currently in private practice.
Regular Registration: $30 per person
This course provides access to the webinar recording. Access is available for 14 days after you register. We recommend accessing the course from a computer. It can also be accessed from mobile devices, however, a computer is preferable.
Please let us know if you have any disability or other special needs so that we can ensure that your needs will be fully met.