Parent Partnership in Early Relational Health |
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Engaging family voices and parent leaders is a core strategy of the National Early Relational Health (ERH) Initiative and the ERH Hub at CSSP. We spoke with experts Bryn Fortune and Anthony Queen to discuss the movement to advance ERH and the creation of authentic and meaningful family partnerships. Bryn leads the new ERH Parent Leadership Brain Trust which will inform the ERH Initiative. Anthony is Parent Leader from Michigan who sits on the ERH National Advisory Panel.
The ERH Hub strategic plan includes family engagement as a core strategy, and we are building partnerships with parents from diverse perspectives and cultures. Six parent leaders are guiding these efforts:
- Tish MacInnis (Strengthening Families, Alabama)
- Cristina Rivera Carpenter (Indigenous, Arizona)
- Allyssa Ware (Family Voices, Maryland)
- Mia Halthon-Jones (African American Voices, Home Visiting, Michigan)
- Claudia Aristy (Spanish-speaking Immigrant Voices, Reach Out and Read, New York)
- Steven Thibert (Fatherhood Council, Washington)
This group is designing an approach to engage an additional ten constituents from their perspective. They will share what they heard, reflect on themes, and discuss key cultural variations in perspectives. Bryn shared her excitement about the uniqueness of the approach to this work, with the inclusion of such broad perspectives, with 60 parent voices informing how to move forward. The ERH Parent Leadership Brain Trust has started meeting to ensure family voice and perspectives meaningfully included from the very beginning of the work of the ERH Hub. In the true spirit of relational health, the group will spend its initial meetings building relationships with one another and will ground themselves in conversations from viewing the content with the Perspectives on ERH video series.
Anthony and Bryn emphasized four key components to ensuring family voice and authentic partnerships:
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Build trust. As Anthony says, “collaboration moves at the speed of trust.” This is true in our ERH work, as well as in the work of providers serving families. To create a partnership, providers need to have the mindset that they can learn as much from the family as they’re giving and establish relationships with the families they serve. Parents ultimately are the experts on their child and have the power to make those decisions, and providers must view themselves as collaborators not deciders.
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Be mindful that all parents have a “superpower that sniffs" authenticity. They know immediately if someone is trying to sell them a program. Parents will automatically be put off by someone who comes off as a “savior.” You must show that you’re engaging in a partnership with families because you care and value their expertise, not because you need to check some boxes on a form.
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Approach with cultural respect and humility. Bryn emphasized that we must take the perspective of approaching collaboration with families as learners. In roles of privilege, it’s the responsibility of providers and professional leaders to self-reflect and self-critique in order to build honest relationships. They must show respect for families' lived experiences. This is also reflected in the AAP Relational Health Policy Statement, which calls for health professionals “to address their implicit biases, develop cultural humility, and provide culturally competent recommendations” to foster strong and meaningful connections with families.
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Use inclusive language. We need to be more mindful of our conversations at every level when families are at the table. We must always avoid using early childhood development jargon, which we often do without realizing. As Anthony put it, “if we’re going to really move the needle, we can’t just have certain people trying to move things forward, we have to have everyone collectively.” When he speaks to fathers about ERH, he speaks casually about topics in a way that interests them as parents. Many families don’t understand the term “ERH,” but once explained, they immediately recognize it from their lived experience.
In sum, advancing ERH will require that our efforts to engage and partner with families are intentional, authentic, and respectful. Anthony summarized it best: “TOGETHER WE’RE BETTER.”
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Updates from the Early Relational Hub at CSSP |
This month’s Willis and Friends brought together two of the three developers of the Early Relational Health Conversation model - Marie-Celeste Condon, PhD and Dominique Charlot-Swilley, Ph.D. They described their experiences in the investigation of thoughts, observations, and experiences with African American families and HealthySteps Specialists of color with Early Relational Health (ERH) screening and the emergence of Early Relational Health Conversations, a family- and culture-centered model for ERH-focused visits in pediatric care settings.
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Check out our recent blog:
Our growing understanding of the factors that ensure the heathy development of young children within strong families focuses both on the foundational relationships of ERH and on the contexts and resources of families within the communities as articulated within the Community Resilience Public Health Model 3.0. These synergistic frameworks come together with their combined strength and create multiple opportunities to create alignment.
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What is Early
Relational Health?
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ERH is a key building block for learning, development, and mental health. The foundational relationships that babies experience with their caregivers shape the health, development, and well-being of two generations—now and into the future. |
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What We're Reading and Watching |
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Joe Waters, Capita. (Re)Thinking Relationally: A Response to the Recent AAP Statement on Early Relational Health. Read Here.
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Leong, Victoria, Neural Sociometrics: Toward Early Screening of Infant Psychosocial and Brain Health to Improve Lifelong Mental Well-Being. Feb. 22, 2022. Read Here.
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Darcia Narvaez, PhD. The Evolved Nest: Companionship, Responsiveness and Attachment. Watch Here.
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Early Relational Health Initiative Vision:
Harness the power of early relationships
for the flourishing of all.
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The mission of the National Early Relational Health Initiative 3.0 is to ensure that all infants, young children, and their families benefit from supports and social connections that advance early relational health and its contribution to lifelong well-being and thriving.
Structural racism, poverty, and other societal barriers can impede the formation of strong early relationships when they result in family stress, community disinvestment, and limited opportunity. When we focus on this foundation and support these relationships, children and their caregivers thrive—now and into the future.
The ERH Initiative is one piece of the many activities at CSSP related to young children and their families, from DULCE, to Strengthening Families, to the Early Learning Nation work, to the EC-LINC work, to the development and promotions of anti-racist, family-driven, and effective early childhood policies, programs, and systems.
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Center for the Study of Social Policy
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