Circle of Security Parenting

A step-by-step map for raising an emotionally secure child

Circle of Security Parenting provides a roadmap for understanding your child’s emotional needs and how to meet them. Through videos, discussions, observing your relationship between the sessions and experimenting with ideas covered in the course, Circle of Security Parenting can help you enhance your ability to respond to your child in a way that deepens their emotional security.

After 60 years of research we know that the more secure children are, the more they are able to:

Enjoy more happiness with their parents
Feel less anger at their parents
Turn to their parents for help when in trouble
Solve problems on their own
Get along better with friends
Have lasting friendships
Solve problems with friends
Have better relationships with brothers and sisters
Have higher self-esteem
Know that most problems will have an answer
Trust that good things will come their way
Trust the people they love
Know how to be kind to those around them

(Cooper, Hoffman and Powell; Circle of Security International, 2018)

What you will learn

Understanding your child

Circle of Security helps you understand what your child might need at each moment. It removes the guesswork and makes showing up as their secure base easier.
Practising observation skills. We often look for answers to our parenting questions online or in parenting books. Circle of Security is different because it encourages us to turn to our children for those answers. Practising some simple observation skills will help you do that.

Understanding yourself

Being a secure base and safe haven for your child - we all do it in our way, the course will give you space to explore what kind of hands you want to be for your child.
Supporting your child’s exploration and welcoming your child in for comfort and reassurance - are two complementary skills that will help your children to both feel confident in their autonomy as well as comfortable with closeness.
Finding the balance between following your child’s needs and taking charge, in other words - how to make space for your child's personality without it taking over your home.
Who are the hands holding you? We’ll look at what support you already have and what support you might want or need to help you be the hands for your child.
Understanding which needs on the circle can trigger your vulnerability and how you can look after yourself in those moments so that you can continue to be the hands on the circle.

Understanding your relationship

Being-with: helping your child co-regulate their emotions within the container of your relationship.
Cues and miscues - sometimes children express their needs directly, and sometimes we need to do a little detective work. Understanding cues and miscues can help us see which need your child might be experiencing when it is not immediately apparent.
One of the biggest parenting challenges - taking charge in a kind way.
Choosing to be the hands when you really, really don’t feel like it.
Recognising ruptures in your relationship and three steps to repair them. Relationship repair is a crucial skill in nurturing a long-term relationship or friendship, and you can teach it to your child by modelling it.
Putting it all together and making it your own.

Circle of Security Parenting builds on over 50 years of attachment research, empowering parents worldwide to nurture emotionally secure children. Now translated into 13 languages, this approach helps parents to understand their children’s emotional needs and build strong, lasting relationships.

Here's what other parents said about Circle of Security Parenting

"The Circle of Security Parenting course was very supportive. It felt like meeting up with an old friend who helped me to find my own answers to some of my own worries around parenting. I found that it had a good balance of resources and space to think and feel. The course was both reassuring and helpful. I will be thinking about the content far into the future, as it is helping me to be the kind of parent I want to be for my daughter."

Mum of a 9-year-old daughter

"My husband and I joined Una's Circle of Security course when relations with our eldest of three sons became particularly challenging, for me especially. I felt I had read all the books on attachment theory and knew what I ought to be doing as a mother, but couldn't translate that into impactful action in practice. In Una and in the Circle of Security programme, we found a parenting resource that has actually facilitated a shift in consciousness for us both, with all of us benefiting from the greater harmony that has allowed for at home (and elsewhere in our lives). Through the course, we were able to not only identify what particular aspects of parenting we found triggering as individuals, but their root causes as well, enabling healing of those areas and - most importantly - a change in the way we parent our kids. Very simply, the Circle of Security model is profound and Una is a skilled and compassionate guide through the material, asking the right questions to help you look deeper. I am extremely grateful to her for introducing us to a resource that we will continue to use and revisit, for the early years of our boys' lives through to adolescence and beyond."

Franceska Jones

How it works

Group and 121 courses

Group course

Participants: a small group of up to 6 parents

Course length: 24 50-minute weekly term-time sessions

Dates: Mondays 10-11 am, April 28 - December 8, 2025

Support in between the sessions: course workbook

Location: online, via Zoom

Investment: five monthly payments of £95 or one pay in full and save payment of £550

Pay monthly

Pay in full

121 course

Participants: you can do this course 121, join with a family member or a friend

Course length: 24 50-minute weekly term-time sessions

Support in between the sessions: course workbook and email and voice message support

Location: online, via Zoom

Investment: five monthly payments of £460 or one pay in full and save payment of £2500

Pay monthly

Pay in full

If you would like to explore how Circle of Security can help you, please book a no-obligation initial consultation by clicking the button below.

Book an intial consultation

You will also receive...

After facilitating COSP courses for over 10 years I know what gets in the way of applying this knowledge in day-to-day parenting, so I added two more elements that run alongside the course to help you bridge the understating with what’s happening at home.

Membership at Meditations for Connection. Sometimes parents come to the session and say: "Ahhhh what was it we spoke about last week?" Meditations for Connection is a growing library of short meditations (under 5 minutes) that cover different aspects of attachment security. After each session, I'll recommend a meditation that is most relevant to the part of the circle we explored that day. It can help you parent each day with intention and avoid repeating the old patterns. (£27 per month when booked separately.)

Group course participants will receive 6 months group membership starting from the time they book their place at the course.
121 course participants will receive life-time group membership.

Brainspotting is a gentle yet powerful trauma therapy. When our attachment needs go unmet, we don't experience what it is like to have that need met. It's a bit like having an arm and not having a chance to use it as you were growing up. When our children show those needs it can bring up a fight or flight response, confusion, overwhelm or numbness. We'll use Brainspotting to create more safety around those attachment needs. It will help you to notice and meet all of your children's attachment needs and change generational patterns of disconnection. Due to the nature of this process, it is only available to 121 course participants. (£95 per 50-minute session when booked separately.)

Frequently asked questions

Why is this course delivered over 24 sessions?

While every relationship is unique, research shows that, on average, it takes about six months of committed effort to shift attachment patterns. Doing the course over 24 sessions allows this process to unfold organically. You can observe your relationship and get clear about where you would like to show up differently. Then you can experiment with it and find a way that feels comfortable and aligned with how you want to parent your child. It takes some time for your child to notice and respond to the change. They might push for a while to check if this change will stay. It takes some back and forth between you and your child until it becomes your new normal. You are supported every step of the way when we do the course over 24 sessions.

What happens during the sessions?

There are three parts to each session:

Checking in about your week, your observations, reflections, wins and challenges.
Studying the course material: each session covers an essential piece of information about developing secure relationships. The content is delivered in a highly interactive and relatable way through videos of parents and their children, graphics and plenty of time for reflection and discussions that will help you to weave your insights into your day-to-day parenting.
Reflecting on the session offers the opportunity to decide what you would like to take away from the session and explore further during the coming week.

Do I need to do anything between sessions?

The most important thing is to keep your insights from the previous session in your awareness as you go about your day-to-day parenting. It’s not about doing more; it’s about doing differently.

Help Your Child

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