The Leeds Early Attachment Observation (EAO) – Gemma Dyble & Chris Whitman

This session will be an opportunity to learn more about this simple assessment tool that has been developed within the Leeds Infant Mental Health Service and was first piloted in 2014.

The purpose of the tool is to identify any emerging difficulties within the caregiver-infant relationship and is currently being delivered as part of the universal offer at the routine 6–8-week 0-19 Specialist Public Health Nurse (SPHN) contact.

The EAO protocol requires the SPHN to ask the primary caregiver three questions about the emerging relationship between themselves and their infant and completes a 2-minute observation of the interactions between the infant and caregiver. We will outline the implementation, evaluation and next steps of the tool.