Connection Circles
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Circle of Security® Parenting™ (COSP) Program
This is an illustration of the Circle of Security - to see this in action please click the link
Key Concepts in COS-P
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Circle of Security Graphic: A visual tool helping parents understand when to support exploration and when to provide comfort.
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Access to real-life examples through video recordings.
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A comprehensive workbook with engaging activities and visual handouts. Something to reflect on later for the reminders of your developed approach
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Shark Music: Emotional triggers that disrupt caregiving.
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Mis-cues: When a child’s behaviour disguises their real emotional need.
Introduction to COS-P
Raising children is one of life’s most rewarding—and at times, most challenging—roles. It’s not about being perfect; it’s about being present. But what does being present really mean, and how do we put it into practice?
Circle of Security® Parenting™ (COS-P) is an internationally recognised, relationship-based parenting program that takes the guesswork out of raising children—no matter what role you play in their lives. Grounded in decades of attachment theory research, COS-P helps caregivers better understand children’s emotional needs and develop deeper, more secure relationships.
Originally developed for parents and carers, COS-P is also a powerful tool for professionals working with children. The program emphasises the importance of the adult–child connection and equips adults with practical, compassionate tools to nurture emotional safety, resilience, and trust—especially in moments that feel overwhelming or out of control. COS-P helps adults make sense of a child’s behaviour through curiosity, empathy, and reflection, rather than judgment. It’s not about having all the answers or memorising parenting books, but about slowing down, noticing, and reconnecting with your own inner wisdom. This approach allows you to become both a secure base from which a child can explore the world and a safe haven to which they can always return. By understanding the balance between a child’s need for connection and their need for independence, COS-P supports more effective, loving, and attuned responses to their emotional cues and behaviours.
Every child comes into the world seeking safety in relationship. COS-P is like an owner’s manual—written not by an expert, but by your child. COS-P helps you learn to read that manual with confidence, compassion, and clarity—so you can meet your child where they are, and walk alongside them as they grow.
What Makes Circle of Security® Parenting unique?
Unlike traditional parenting programs that offer scripts or quick-fix techniques, COSP focuses on reflection and connection. It helps parents understand their child’s behaviour as communication and equips them to respond in ways that foster security, resilience, and healthy emotional development. The program honours the uniqueness of each family and promotes "good enough" parenting as an achievable, sustainable goal. COSP also aligns with the deeper truth that connection and love are central to human thriving.
Core Program Elements for Personal Use
Whether you're a parent, carer, grandparent, or play a different role in a child's life, the COS-P program offers practical tools and deep insights to support stronger, more secure relationships. Through the program, you will explore and develop the following key elements: Exploration & Safety: Learn how to support your child’s natural drive to explore the world, while remaining their secure base and safe haven to return to. Understand Your Child’s Emotional World: Discover how children communicate their needs—especially through behaviour—and how to respond with empathy, curiosity, and connection. Support Emotional Regulation: Gain simple, effective strategies to help your child navigate big feelings and build emotional resilience over time. Build Secure Attachment: Develop a strong, stable bond with your child that lays the foundation for lifelong emotional wellbeing and healthy relationships. Enhance Self-Esteem: Learn how to nurture your child’s confidence, sense of worth, and inner safety by simply showing up with presence and care. Recognise Your Parenting Style: Reflect on your own parenting strengths and patterns. Whether you parent solo or with a partner, learn how to stay grounded and work as a team. Strengthen Daily Connection through Attunement: Understand the power of being truly present in everyday moments—tuning in to your child’s emotional needs to foster trust and connection. Manage Ruptures and Repair: No relationship is perfect. Learn how to repair moments of disconnection with intention, building deeper security and trust along the way. Parent with Confidence: Identify your emotional triggers and learn to move from reactivity to responsive, calm, and intuitive parenting—free from guilt, shame, or overwhelm.
Core Program Elements for Professional Practice
Whether you’re an early childhood educator, carer, teacher, or support professional, the COS-P model, developed by researchers at the University of Washington, offers a powerful, research-based approach with practical tools to build a strong emotional foundation for every child—one that supports resilience, curiosity, confidence, and lifelong wellbeing. It identifies four key elements of security that are crucial for a child’s emotional and social development: Emotional availability and support learn how to respond to children's emotions with empathy and care, ensuring they feel seen, heard, and understood. This is attunement and helps children feel safe in expressing their feelings and navigate relationships with others. Predictable and Consistent routines: Stable routines and consistent expectations help children feel secure, providing them with a sense of structure and reliability. This is not about ridged schedules, it’s about removing the guess work from the day, so children can focus their energy on those hard moments. Structuring and guiding with boundaries: Through gentle direction and establishing clear expectations, learn to foster environments where children feel safe to test limits and grow. This is about being safe in learning the boundaries, so they grow to Respect and Encouragement of Autonomy: Learn to encourage children’s exploration and independence while providing the necessary support, guidance reassurance when needed. This encourages confidence in decision-making.
Who is COS-P for?
COS-P is for all parents, carers, grandparents etc predominantly for children aged 0-12, who want to strengthen their emotional connection with their children and improve their understanding of their children's emotional needs. This especially important for those navigating anxiety, trauma, disconnection, or past negative parenting experiences. It supports anyone seeking to raise children with love, intention, and presence. It resonates deeply with those who feel called to parent from the heart and trust the quiet guidance within. – however, the concepts can be applied to almost any relationship in a person’s life. I also have experience working with parents and child with neurodiversity, anxiety or challenging behaviours, grief and loss, attachment issues, fostering and out of home care, trauma abuse, neglect. First-time parents Single parents Parents wanting to bond better with their child Parents with limited support networks Parents who have been estranged or spent long periods away from their child Parents who have a strained relationship with their own parents Parents who have difficulty connecting and relating with others Carers who are a non-biological parent for the child Confidently applicable to neurodivergent parents and children.
For Carers, Youth Workers, and Professionals in Relational Roles
Children who have experienced inconsistent or unsafe attachment relationships often struggle to trust or connect with new caregivers. In your role—whether as a carer, youth worker, or support professional—you may encounter children displaying challenging behaviours, trauma responses, or complex emotional needs. This training is designed to support you as much as the children in your care. Instead of relying on traditional behaviour management techniques like rewards or punishment, positive behaviour support planning, you’ll be invited to shift your perspective: to view behaviour as communication, a window into the child’s underlying emotional needs. Through this program, you will: Learn to respond with greater sensitivity and attunement to children's cues. Develop strategies to manage your own emotional responses to attachment challenges. Build stronger, more secure relationships with the children you support. As these relationships grow in security and trust, you’ll often see children become more cooperative, regulated, and connected. With time, both the caregiver and the child experience deeper enjoyment and mutual respect—fostering a sense of safety that can truly transform lives.
How Will COS-P Benefit My Child?
Children whose caregivers participate in the COS-P program experience meaningful improvements in their emotional and relational development. By deepening your understanding of their emotional needs, your child will benefit in the following ways: •Increased emotional regulation – children learn to manage big feelings more effectively when caregivers respond with sensitivity and consistency. •Greater resilience – with a secure base and safe haven, children are more confident in navigating life’s challenges. •Stronger self-worth – feeling seen, valued, and understood builds a solid foundation of self-esteem. •Secure, trusting relationships – consistent, attuned caregiving fosters healthy attachment patterns that support lifelong relational wellbeing. When children feel safe—physically, emotionally, and relationally—they are free to explore, grow, and express their full potential. COS-P helps create the conditions where your child feels not only held in your arms, but also in your presence, your patience, and your deep understanding.
Fathers, Dads ~ this one is for you
Whether you’re an early childhood educator, carer, teacher, or support professional, the COS-P model, developed by researchers at the University of Washington, offers a powerful, research-based approach with practical tools to build a strong emotional foundation for every child—one that supports resilience, curiosity, confidence, and lifelong wellbeing. It identifies four key elements of security that are crucial for a child’s emotional and social development: Emotional availability and support learn how to respond to children's emotions with empathy and care, ensuring they feel seen, heard, and understood. This is attunement and helps children feel safe in expressing their feelings and navigate relationships with others. Predictable and Consistent routines: Stable routines and consistent expectations help children feel secure, providing them with a sense of structure and reliability. This is not about ridged schedules, it’s about removing the guess work from the day, so children can focus their energy on those hard moments. Structuring and guiding with boundaries: Through gentle direction and establishing clear expectations, learn to foster environments where children feel safe to test limits and grow. This is about being safe in learning the boundaries, so they grow to Respect and Encouragement of Autonomy: Learn to encourage children’s exploration and independence while providing the necessary support, guidance reassurance when needed. This encourages confidence in decision-making.
For Educators, Teachers and the like
Professionals working in education and care settings have found this training invaluable—not only for deepening their understanding of attachment theory but also for enhancing their ability to support children’s emotional development in everyday practice. By participating, educators gain: Practical tools to respond to children’s emotional needs with sensitivity and insight. A shared language and perspective that can strengthen communication with parents, carers, and families Greater confidence in creating emotionally safe, responsive environments that foster secure attachment. Importantly, the benefits extend beyond the workplace. Many educators find that what they learn positively impacts their own families and relationships within their broader communities. Professionals: COS-P is used by various professionals, including therapists, counsellors, and educators, to help families build secure attachment.
Research, Evaluation, and Effectiveness
The Circle of Security Parenting™ (COS-P) program is firmly grounded in decades of rigorous research on attachment theory. It is widely recognized for its effectiveness in enhancing parent-child attachment, reducing behavioural difficulties, and promoting positive parenting practices. For a comprehensive overview of the research, please visit the Circle of Security International Research page. Key findings include: •A longitudinal mixed-method quasi-experimental study involving 75 mother-child pairs demonstrated significant positive impacts on attachment and caregiving patterns among high-risk toddlers, preschoolers, and their primary caregivers (Hoffman et al., 2006). •A randomized controlled trial (RCT) of the home-visiting version of Circle of Security conducted in Washington state among economically stressed mothers with irritable newborns at risk of insecure attachment found that participation significantly reduced the likelihood of insecure attachment (Cassidy, Woodhouse et al., 2011). References Cassidy, J., Woodhouse, S., Sherman, L., Stupica, B., & Lejuez, C. (2011). Enhancing infant attachment security: An examination of treatment efficacy and differential susceptibility. Journal of Development and Psychopathology, 23(1), 131–148. Hoffman, K. T., Marvin, R. S., Cooper, G., & Powell, B. (2006). Changing toddlers’ and preschoolers’ attachment classifications: The Circle of Security intervention. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 74(6), 1017–1026.
What Does COS-P Teach?
Where Did the Circle of Security® Come From?
Circle of Security® Parenting™ (COS-P) teaches parents and carers to see their child’s behaviour as a window into their emotional world. Rather than focusing solely on managing behaviour, COS-P helps adults understand the needs beneath the behaviour—and respond with empathy, clarity, and connection. COS-P supports caregivers to: Recognise emotional needs hiding behind everyday behaviours Respond with compassion rather than control or correction Be a secure base and safe haven their child can trust Hold space for their child’s full emotional experience Ultimately, COS-P reminds us that our loving presence—not perfection—is the greatest gift we can offer our children.
The Circle of Security® Parenting™ (COS-P) program was developed by Glen Cooper, Kent Hoffman, and Bert Powell—three clinicians and researchers with a deep commitment to supporting healthy parent-child relationships. Grounded in decades of university-based attachment research, they created a practical, video-based intervention to help parents better understand and respond to their children’s emotional needs. Since its inception, Circle of Security® has grown into a globally recognised program. It has been translated into multiple languages and embraced by families, professionals, and communities around the world—supporting millions in building stronger, more secure relationships with children.