Dad and baby

Model Profiles

Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-Up

Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-Up (ABC) helps caregivers provide nurturing care and engage in positive parent-child interaction. ABC supports caregivers in reading children’s cues in order to provide a responsive, predictable environment to enhance children’s behavioral and regulatory capabilities. ABC offers three programs: Newborn, Infant, and Early Childhood.

What is the model’s approach to providing home visiting services?

Home visits take place weekly or biweekly. Services are provided for 10-12 sessions. For the Newborn program, ABC requires families to enroll when the child is younger than 6 months. For the Infant program, ABC requires families to enroll when the child is between 6 and 24 months old. For the Early Childhood program, ABC requires families to enroll when the child is between 24 and 48 months old.

ABC’s service population includes the following:

  • Families with low incomes
  • Families with a history of child abuse or neglect/involvement with child welfare system
  • Families who consider their child to be growing up in a challenging environment
  • Children experiencing a caregiving transition (e.g., foster care placement, adoption)

Who is implementing the model?

Home Visitors

ABC was implemented by 168 home visitors in 2022. Home visitor education recommendations and requirements are determined by local agencies. There are no requirements for home visitor caseload limits.

Supervisors

ABC was implemented by 62 supervisors in 2022. Supervisor education recommendations and requirements are determined by local agencies.

Where is the model implemented?

ABC operated in 172 local agencies across 28 states and the District of Columbia in 2022. ABC also operated outside the United States and its territories in Australia, Canada, Chile, Germany, Mexico, Norway, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom in 2022.

 

Families Served Through Evidence-Based Home Visiting in 2022

2,214
home visits provided
including 819 virtual visits
672
families served
677
children served

Mission

ABC aims to support infants and toddlers who have experienced early adversity, such as neglect or a change in caregivers. Parent coaches help caregivers learn to follow their children’s lead with delight, behave in nurturing ways when children are distressed, and avoid behaving in frightening or intrusive ways.

History

Twenty-five years ago, Dr. Mary Dozier and her colleagues and students at the University of Delaware’s Infant Caregiver Project developed ABC to address the needs of infants in foster care. ABC was tested in three randomized controlled trials studying infants in foster care, infants living with birth parents in a foster care diversion program, and infants adopted internationally. These studies showed positive short- and long-term effects on children’s attachment, diurnal cortisol patterns, self-regulation, and language development; positive effects were also noted for parents’ behavior and neurobiology. Model developers identified parent coaches’ “in-the-moment” comments to participants as ABC’s mechanism of intervention and developed clear fidelity criteria for replication. The model is now disseminated across the United States and internationally. It is currently being evaluated in several independent effectiveness trials.