WV Brazelton Touchpoints Training

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WV Brazelton Touchpoints Training

The Brazelton Touchpoints Center has certified the IMPACT WV program at the CED as a Brazelton Touchpoints Training Site to make training opportunities available to the state’s community of family-facing providers. Offering the new trainings will help support West Virginia families in recovery and their children who have experienced prenatal exposure. 

Participants can enroll in Touchpoints: The How of Child and Family Engagement in the Context of Substance Use Disorder

“It has been an incredible learning experience to participate in the Brazelton Touchpoints training. Because the training modules are set up to include both lecture and hands-on time, I am able to practice consistently implementing the Touchpoints Tools.” ~ training participant

What is it?

Brazelton Touchpoints is an evidence-based approach to building strengths-based, collaborative family-provider partnerships in service of strong, healthy family-child relationships from before birth throughout early childhood. The Brazelton Touchpoints Center has collaborated with IMPACT WV to make training opportunities like this one available to our state’s community of family-facing providers.  These Touchpoints trainings offer participants a strength-based approach to support parents of infants and young children using guiding principles as relationship-based practices and compassionate assumptions as strengths-based attitudes. 

Collaboration with West Virginia families is essential. West Virginia families are experiencing high impacts of substance use disorder and ranking first for overdose deaths as reported by the CDC.  According to the US Department of Health and Human Services annual Child Maltreatment report, WV had the second highest rate of child abuse and neglect.

The Touchpoints approach recognizes the process of disorganization and regression that occur during predictable times during a child’s development- called “touchpoints.” These periods of disorganization often create increased stress and have the potential to derail family relationships. The Touchpoints approach views these times as important opportunities to connect and work alongside the family to support caregivers’ emotional availability and sensitive responsiveness to their child. The Touchpoints approach helps reframe the disorganized times as necessary to healthy development and relationships as children mature. The interventions propel children’s healthy development and build the internal capacity of—and strengthen the collaborative relationships among—families, parents, caregivers, providers, and communities.       

What Do Providers Learn?

  • The impact of parent-child-provider relationships on a child’s development in the early years of life
  • Understanding the process of a child’s development and looking at how and why change in behavior occurs 
  • Strategies for forming a strength-based relationship with parents
  • A common language in creating a community where families feel supported to reach their fullest potential 

The Brazelton Touchpoints Center engages in three principal areas of activity that are critical to attaining our long-term vision: 

  1. Professional and Organizational Development 
  2. Knowledge Development 
  3. Advocacy and Awareness 

Who Should Attend:

This training is open to 18 professionals who work with WV Head Start, Early Head Start, OT, PT or Nursing for FREE (normally $600) – sponsored by IMPACT WV, WVITMHA, and WVU.

* If you are not able to attend after registering, PLEASE contact charlotte.workman@hsc.wvu.edu immediately so the spot can be filled.

Location:

Virtually via Zoom platform.

Schedule:

Weekly calls will take place from 8:30 am to 12:30 on September 14, 2023, followed by 8:30 am – 10:30 am sessions on September 21, September 28, October 5, October 12, October 19, October 26, November 2, November 9, and November 16, 2023.

Monthly one-hour Reflection Practice calls will take place at 8:30 am on December 14, 2023, January 11, February 8, March 14, April 11, and May 9, 2024.

Continuing Medical Education and Competencies:

This training has been approved for 20.25 contact hours. Social work, STARS, OT, PT and Nursing credits approved.

  • Requirements to obtain credit: Complete pre-test and post-test; attend and participate in Sessions 1-10 and at least 4 of 6 reflective sessions. 
  • Training hours can be counted toward application for the WV Infant/Toddler Mental Health Endorsement. 

For more information about the Brazelton Touchpoints Training, visit https://www.brazeltontouchpoints.org/. For other questions, contact Sue Workman at 304-293-4692 or by email at charlotte.workman@hsc.wvu.edu

Register Here

Facilitators:

Sue Workman, BS, CCRP, Touchpoints certified facilitator and site coordinator

Amanda Newhouse, LICSW and assistant professor in the WVU Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute’s Department of Behavioral Medicine and Psychiatry

Dr. Tina Antill Keener, Assistant Professor with the WVU School of Nursing

“And the fact that the training series is taught by Brazelton trained West Virginia presenters Amanda Newhouse and Tina Antill-Keener makes it a truly engaging professional development experience!” ~ training participant

This training can be provided for individual organizations who would like to sponsor a cohort of learners. For more information, contact Sue Workman at charlotte.workman@hsc.wvu.edu.