A Letter to Dr. Brazelton in the Time of Coronavirus
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This letter went out on the second anniversary of Dr. Brazelton's passing.
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Dear Berry,
I sure wish you were here to help us with this Coronavirus epidemic. You were practical. You stuck with what was in your power to do, and in ours. You inspired us, as you did parents, to do the most good we could by finding that good in ourselves.
You would have reminded us of everything we can do to avoid infection, and that most people who get sick will recover. You would have been obsessed about helping the people at greatest risk – our elders, people with pre-existing illness without health insurance, without paid sick leave, in low wage service jobs, in overcrowded housing, detention centers, or without homes. You would have insisted that we help the helpers risking their own health, the nursing home workers and health care providers caring for the medically fragile, and those donning masks and goggles to treat one baby or child after another with fever and cough – all day long.
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In This Issue | March 2020
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3 generation opioid crisis
through the lens of Touchpoints professional development
Learning to Listen Returns
– The 2020 Lineup
How You Can Help
- The 2020 Census Countdown
BTC Podcasts now available
on iTunes and Spotify
Resources for your work
with children and families
Remembering
T. Berry Brazelton, MD
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A Three Generation Approach to
the Opioid Epidemic
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Every 15 minutes a baby is born in the U.S. with symptoms of opioid withdrawal (
view full report here
). These newborns are often irritable, difficult to soothe, to settle down to sleep and to feed. These predictable challenges can be draining for already exhausted parents and undermine their sense of effectiveness and competence. Newborns’ withdrawal symptoms may interfere with their earliest contributions to the attachment process, just as a mother’s struggle with substance use may complicate hers.
Research on the long-term effects of exposure to opioids during pregnancy suggests long term developmental impacts, but it is fraught with the confounding factors associated with substance use disorders (SUD), especially other poverty-related adversities, and trauma, which affects half or more of women of childbearing age with SUDs. The research is, however, clear that the single most important way to mitigate the effects of in utero exposure on children’s development is the quality of the primary caregiving relationship.
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BTC's
Learning to Listen: Conversations for Change
webcast/podcast series returns this month with three new provocative episodes! Join BTC as we discuss children in warzones overcoming trauma, children on the autism spectrum finding their voice through the arts, and the struggle for marriage equality and everyday same sex parenting.
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Missed the premiere episode? Watch
Trauma and Recovery: Children in Warzones, Raising Children to Make Peace
now!
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Upcoming Learning to Listen Episodes
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APRIL IS AUTISM AWARENESS MONTH
Learning with Parents: Children on the Autism Spectrum and the Arts
Featuring
Elaine Hall
, Founder of
The Miracle Project
and internationally recognized autism educator and advocate, and
Yudi Bennett
, co-Founder of
Exceptional Minds
and
Founder of the Foothill Autism Alliance
. Yudi and Elaine join BTC's Joshua Sparrow, MD, in exploring how they both learned not only to listen to their children, but to give voice to thousands of children with autism spectrum disorders.
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JUNE IS LGBTQ PRIDE MONTH
Marriage Equality and Same Sex Parenting: Families on the Frontlines
Kris Perry,
Deputy Secretary of the California Health and Human Services Agency and Senior Advisor to the Governor on Implementation of Early Childhood Development Initiatives,
will talk with BTC's Joshua Sparrow, MD, about both the marriage equality lawsuit she and her wife brought against the state of California, and also about the struggles and joys of same sex parenting.
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It is with deep sadness that I share with you the unexpected passing of Betty Bardige, a long-time Touchpoints board member and a tireless advocate for children and families. The Brazelton Touchpoints Center has been asked by several partner organizations about what family-facing nonprofit organizations can do to help ensure an accurate census. As Betty reminded me just a few weeks before her death, it is vital that all children and families be counted, and, she insisted, all childcare providers too.
It has never been more important for organizations that care about children and families to ensure every child and family is counted. For most of the past decade, Congress and the Administration have cut Census Bureau budgets. Inadequate funding, combined with increased reliance on online data collection, and fears over how census data may be used, are driving deep concerns that the Census Bureau may undercount children and families that are economically disadvantaged, residents who speak English as a second language, immigrants, and others that may be unable or unwilling to share information.
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Remembering T. Berry Brazelton, MD
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In tribute to his dedicated efforts to science and medicine, Dr. T. Berry Brazelton was honored with a Memorial Minute at Harvard Medical School, celebrating and capturing his lifetime contributions and accomplishments. As we commemorate his legacy on the anniversary of his passing on March 13, 2018,
remember Dr. Brazelton by reading this celebration of his life.
Illustration cred
it:
Johannes Fellinger
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Resources from the National Center for Parent, Family and Community Engagement
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Domestic violence impacts all of our communities
and can have long-term negative effects on the well-being and safety of children and families. The
Preventing and Responding to Domestic Violence
toolkit offers resources to support parent and child survivors of domestic violence to heal and thrive, including a guide to partnering with families to address domestic violence and understanding what it is.
Text4FamilyServices
allows providers and family-facing professionals to sign up and receive two text messages per month with information, tips, research and links to resources that can strengthen their work with children and families, in addition to special invitations to free professional development events and newly released resources. Sign up for free by texting "PFCE" to 22660.
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Watch "Partnering with Families: Parent Leadership in Action"
to explore how to encourage parents to build increased confidence and leadership skills and see how parents and staff develop trusting relationships. The video highlights examples in which parents work with one another to shape programs and practices and strategies that promote supportive family partnerships and strengthen parent-child relationships.
Watch the video here.
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BTC is now on iTunes and Spotify!
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Learning to Listen: Conversations for Change Podcast:
Listen to all Learning to Listen podcast episodes on
iTunes
and
Spotify
. Don't forget to subscribe to receive notifications when new episodes are available!
BTC Learning Network Podcast:
Listen to all BTC Learning Network episodes on
iTunes
and
Spotify
. Don't forget to subscribe to receive notifications when new episodes are available!
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Deneen Coren, a teacher at Horizons for Homeless Children, shares how she has incorporated Touchpoints into her day-to-day and how it has strengthened the scope of her work. Touchpoints provides an evidence based approach helping providers prepare for the challenges and opportunities that can arise working with families.
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Professional Development @ BTC
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Brazelton Touchpoints is a strengths-based approach to family engagement for family-facing professionals that shows how understanding child behavior and the vital role of primary caregiver relationships in child and family development can be used to build communication skills for strong partnerships with all kinds of families.
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Share Your Testimonial!
We'd love to hear about how Touchpoints impacts your work with children and families! Contact
Kayla Savelli
to share your story with us!
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Touchpoints Individual Level Trainings
provide a practical approach to family engagement that supports professionals in forming strength-based partnerships with families.
Newborn Behavioral Observations
is a a clinical relationship-building tool for family-facing professionals to help parents understand their baby’s language.
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Touchpoints Parenting Program
teaches
providers how to facilitate parent groups
using
a prevention-oriented anticipatory guidance curriculum that supports positive family relationships.
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Family Connections
provides an evidence-based, system-wide model for mental health consultation and professional development.
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We've been busy sharing knowledge, resources, and research on Facebook - in case you missed it online, here are some of the most popular things that have really engaged our community -
join us on Facebook today
!
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Brazelton Touchpoints Center
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