Coffee Breaks with TXICFW: How to Build Healthier Caregiver-child Relationships
Tina Adkins, Ph.D. Joins us on Coffee Breaks with TXICFW in February to discuss the ongoing evaluation of Family Minds, a short 3 session psycho-educational training which focuses on teaching parents about mentalization (also known as “reflective parenting”) and how to use the skill of mentalization to be more therapeutic with their children, to help manage their children’s emotions and behaviors better and to help increase secure attachment with their foster or adoptive children. Tina will provide insights from her work and practical tips for caregivers and practitioners who work with caregivers.
Mentalization-based interventions show promise in improving mental health outcomes for children and parents through increasing a family’s ability to mentalize. Mentalization, or reflective functioning, develops within the context of a secure attachment relationship and involves the ability to understand behavior in relation to mental states such as thoughts and feelings. It is the skill of being able to see yourself from the outside and your children from the inside, and is an essential component of being a sensitive, therapeutic foster or adoptive parent. Research shows that parents who are skilled at mentalizing have high rates of secure attachments with their children. By supporting foster parents’ ability for reflective functioning and mentalization, they are also gaining the ability to not only regulate themselves, but also regulate the arousal of their foster children.
Join us a for a live session on February 22nd, 2018 from 2-2:30 pm on our Facebook Page!
Learn more about Tina & Monica!