Training in the NCAST Parent-Child Interaction (PCI) Feeding & Teaching Scales is recommended by the Nurse Family Partnership Program. Find out how to get started. ___________________________
SUPERHERO FOR FAMILIES
Amidst all the bad news, there is hope and it lies with people who won't let families fail. They are people who toil, innovate and inspire; people who never give up the struggle to make life a little better for children.
The Healer, Kathryn Barnard
“She is a force of nature,” says Dr. Ben Danielson, medical director of the Odessa Brown Children’s Clinic in Seattle. “She has done what I don’t think anyone else could do.” He’s talking about Dr. Kathryn Barnard, founder of the Center on Infant Mental Health and Development at the University of Washington (UW). Opened in 2001, the center is a product of Barnard’s passion for meeting the needs of the youngest and most vulnerable of children. It’s also one of the only places in the country that provides specialized training in infant mental health.
The center is just the latest in Barnard’s accomplishments in the field of infant development, which started with her groundbreaking research in parent-child interaction and how it affects a child’s later physical, psychological and emotional health. Along the way, she has designed training programs for public health nurses who work with families of infants at high risk; created measurements for parent-child interactions, which are now used around the world; and helped design the national Early Head Start program for newborns to 3-year-olds. But to Danielson, Barnard’s most significant achievement is the inspiration and wisdom she brings to others who work for the mental health needs of infants, a field once virtually ignored in our society. —Kathryn Russell Selk
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