Attachment theory, one of the approaches to understand childhood and adulthood relationships, has an important place in terms of psychology. It has been tried to understand and explain the complicated structure of the close relationships in the light of the bonding theory developed with the research on the nature of the relationship between the individual and the child in the first years of life. A safe and supportive family environment is an important factor in the child's healthy personality development. Children undergoing care and protection, who have to leave their parents and their social environment for some reasons such as parental loss, divorce, socio-economic poverty, ill-treatment, neglect, have difficulty in adapting to life and it harms their sense of trust. In terms of attachment theory, children in need of protection, who are exposed to some traumatizing situation such as separation, losing, and rupture, often use anxious and avoidant attachment style often because of the effect of abuse and neglect they have experienced in the past. Constant change of attachment role models due to the structure of residential care causes instability and damages children's trust in adults. In this article which deals with the problems of children who need to be protected in terms of attachment theory, the impact of residential care on the attachment and trust relationship of children in need of protection is discussed.

Key Words: Attachment theory, child in need of protection, social service, residential care