On Ideas for Child-Parent Activities: Help for parents from Zero-to-Three

Slide source: Sherri Hill, Babies, brains and relationships

Parent-Child Activities that Promote Thinking Skills

• Create an obstacle course. Lay out boxes to crawl through, stools to step over, pillows to jump on top of, low tables to slither under. Describe what your child is doing as he goes through the course. This helps him understand these concepts.

School Readiness: Birth to Three 

There are so many resources available through Zero-to-Three. Do you subscribe to the Baby to Big Kid E-newsletter?

An e-newsletter that showcases how children learn and grow each month from birth to 3 years. From Baby to Big Kid translates the science of early childhood and offers strategies parents can tailor to their unique family situation and to the needs of their child.

 http://www.zerotothree.org/child-development/from-baby-to-big-kid/

On Avoiding the Classroom-to-Prison Pipeline: Ending the kick-out mentality

Slide: Cognitive Behavior Therapy Plus conference

A former CPS caseworker expresses regret for families that were disrupted through her actions 30 years ago, when children were removed permanently in the absence of services to teach parenting skills. -gw

As a culture, are we just too punitive to get our vengeful eyes off the offender and onto collateral casualties, like the kids? By removing defective moms as though they didn’t matter, social services endorses the kick-out mentality. The mom is bad, thus disposable. Labeling people “bad” and putting them aside is too simple. It ignores all the connections, the attachments, the context. 

As such, automatically removing children from troubled homes is an early-childhood version of the kick-out mentality that leads to the classroom-to-prison pipeline. It demeans how critically important relationships are to kids — all kids, of all ages. Family members are not spare parts.

Why ‘Bad’ Moms Still Should Parent Their Kids

Looking Beyond the Silo of Our Discipline: A story of a mother's faith restored

Slide source: Sherry Hill, Babies, Brains and Relationships

Another great story to demonstrate the importance of not being stuck in the "silo" of  the discipline we were trained in. Barbara Kalmanson PhD is speaking to me here. -gw

...mental health providers are often under informed about the impact of sensory processing, motor development, or communication systems on the social and emotional development of the child. Here’s an example from the mental health consultation room. A young mother brings her toddler son for consultation. She is concerned he is on the Autism Spectrum. During the play assessment, the child shows interest in a toy drum. Mom and therapist join his play, each sitting to one side of him. The child bangs on the drum. The therapist captures his interest by holding her hand in the air and exaggerating a look on her face that signals high affect anticipation. With the therapist’s support, Mom tries the same gesture and facial expression, but the child only looks in the therapist’s direction. Mom’s facial expression sinks into depression. The therapist, informed by sensory processing differences, as well as psychological processes, sees Mom’s face and checks on her perception. Mom thinks the child prefers the therapist to his own mother. The therapist empathizes with her worry but also conjectures that it might have to do with his visual – motor systems. What if he prefers to look to the right? She has Mom switch places with her on the floor, and low and behold, the child only looks toward the mother. The mother’s faith in her capacity to engage her child is restored and the treatment can proceed by noticing the individual difference needs of her son, and how the parents can build engagement and intimacy in the relationship.

Implementation of principles of infant mental health across disciplines

On Seeking Pleasure/Avoiding Pain or Designed for Connectedness: Theories about human nature

Which story about our "human nature" do you prefer? Are we in this world out of self-interest, or are we designed for connectedness and relatedness? -gw

Overview of Attachment Impact of Chronic Relational/Ambient Trauma

On Understanding Violence in America: Quotable quotes from an infant mental health specialist

Keep your eye peeled and you'll discover so much in the news about infant mental health. -gw

"It's sort of like the best kept secret of why I think America is so violent,” she says. “It's because we really don't take good care of our children at a policy, national level."
    

"So, if we can first admit as a society that infants and toddlers are adversely effected by their experiences,” she says, “and sort of not protect ourselves from the pain of that, then we can begin to look at public policy, funding and training that can alter the course."

University of Michigan researcher and infant mental health specialist Julie Ribaudo

On Murder Rates Are Down For Youth: Is it chance or programs that have been shown to work?

Those of us in the field of early childhood typically see the work as so hopeful because effective early intervention can stave off disaster. A young child becomes a teenager and then an adult in what seems like the blink of an eye. Murder rates are down for youth. To what can we attribute the success? Chance? Or programs that have been shown to work?

The CDC, other researchers and partners over time have evaluated different approaches to reducing risk for violence. These types of approaches do reduce risk for violence,” she said. “There is no one reason a young person gets involved with violence. There is no one prevention approach that solves this problem.” 

Programs that have been shown to work give youngster better communication skills, encourage parents to be more involved in what their children are doing, and discourage violence in general. Not all programs do work, Ferdon noted. “What we have seen is there is a lot of variablility in these programs,” she said. 

She said the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence at the University of Colorado outlines some, which include intensive family counseling such as parent-child interaction therapy; multisystemic therapy aimed at homes, schools and neighborhoods; and cognitive-behavioral group therapy.

http://www.nbcnews.com/health/youth-murder-rates-30-year-low-cdc-reports-6C10604586

The Incredible Years and violence prevention

On Holding a Potential Therapist Accountable: Ask questions in advance

One way to ensure therapist accountability is to ask questions up-front, in the same way you might ask a plumber if he is bonded and certified before having him do work on your house. Yes, therapists are required to be licensed in Washington State. But are they qualified to provide a particular therapy, especially one that meets the criteria for being evidence-based? Do they follow protocol, if it is a manualized therapy? 

A lot of the posts on this blog reference Parent Child Interaction Therapy, well-suited for doing dyadic work with parent and young child. What should a caseworker or parent ask a potential PCIT therapist? This comprehensive monograph by the Child Welfare Information Gateway on "Parent-Child Interaction Therapy  With At-Risk Families" outlines those questions.

• How will the parent be involved in this process? 

• What is the nature of your PCIT training? When were you trained? By whom? How long was the training? Do you have access to follow-up consultation? What resource materials on PCIT are you familiar with? Are you clinically supervised by (or do you participate in a peer supervision group with) others who are PCIT trained? 

• Why do you feel that PCIT is the appropriate treatment model for this child? Would the child benefit from other treatment methods after they complete PCIT (i.e., group or individual therapy)? 

• What techniques will you use to help the child manage his or her emotions and related behaviors? 

• Do you use a standard assessment process to gather baseline information on the functioning of the child and family and to monitor their progress in treatment over time? 

• Do you have access to the appropriate equipment for PCIT (one-way mirror, ear bug, video equipment)? If not, how do you plan to structure the sessions to ensure that the PCIT techniques are used according to the model? 

• Is there any potential for harm associated with treatment?

https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/f_interactbulletin/f_interactbulletin.pdf

On Keeping Up With Insights, Trends, Programs, Practices and Information: An idea for a new website

Perhaps you received an invitation to participate in a survey to inform The Washington Strengthening Families Collective as to whether to proceed with an intriguing online endeavor. -gw

Survey on Mapping Family Strengths in Washington State - Project Overview. Organizations, groups, families, and individuals all over the state are committed and engaged--both formally and informally--in The Strengthening Families Approach and the Protective Factor Framework. The Washington Strengthening Families Collective (formerly Strengthening Families Washington) recognizes that there is a significant amount information and activity related to strengthening families and building protective factors in a range of sectors throughout the state. 

Mining Insights and Opportunities. We believe that valuable insights and opportunities can be mined by collecting information across sectors on work that is applying the Strengthening Families Approach. Insights and opportunities gained from the collective information can help stimulate collaboration and innovation, increase collective impact, inform funding and thereby accelerate the presence of protective factors in our state. 

Simplifying and Making Meaning. We are embarking on creating a dynamic, searchable, simple and useful online tool through which insights, trends, programs, practices, and information aligned to the Strengthening Families Approach (including strategies to build Protective Factors) can be accessed. Once people have access to this collective perspective, we envision providing forums for discussion and collaboration.

On the Provider Experience: The mystery and glory of seldom-opened file drawers

Some file drawers in my office hardly ever get opened. I even forget what's in them. Today, avoiding required paperwork, I cracked open one and saw file folders neatly labeled  in pencil, alphabetized from A to Z, with some keywords and pat phrases of my discipline (whatever it is). Perusing the folders I experienced one discovery after another. "Wow! There is that file on hiring attachment-ready staff I got at that conference in 2002!" -- etc., etc.  Below are the folder titles just through the A's, B's and C's. Don't you just love lists! -gw

Adult attachment
Abuse and brain development
Adult child-relationship
Adverse childhood experiences
Antecedent, behavior, consequences
Aggression continuum
Ambivalent child/preoccupied parent
Antisocial personality
Arousal curve
Assertiveness training
Attachment-ready

Bedtime
Biting
Body language
Brain and trauma
Bullying

Caregiving in groups
Challenging behaviors
Child development
Child-parent psychotherapy
Child/parent/provider
Children's books
Circle of security
Classroom observation
Cognitive behavior therapy
Conflict cycle
Cross-cultural consideration
Cultural competence
Culture of poverty