Bank Street College of Education invites you to attend

A Brazelton Touchpoints Early Care and Education Training

Founder, T. Berry Brazelton, MD at
Bank Street College of Education

Friday, October 23rd: 4-7 pm
Saturday, October 24th: 8:30 - 3:30 pm
Saturday, November 7th: 8:30 - 5 pm
(attendance at all three sessions is required)

At Bank Street College of Education
132 Claremont Ave. (between 122nd St. and LaSalle)
4th Floor
New York City

Meals will be provided

For registration information, please contact: Arlene Uss at 212.961.3418 or auss@bankstreet.edu

Or Lisa Desrochers at lisa.desrochers@childrens.harvard.edu

The total cost of this three-day Bank Street College of Education - Brazelton Touchpoints professional development collaborative training is $550.00. EIP Scholarship Awards that cover the registration cost may be available, please contact Arlene Uss for more details.

Click here for the PDF registration form >>

Touchpoints

Touchpoints is a practical approach for enhancing the competence of parents and building strong family-child relationships from before birth through the earliest years, laying the vital foundation for children's healthy development. Touchpoints has grown out of over 60 years of infant research and practice by T. Berry Brazelton, MD a leading pediatrician and author of numerous books and articles. Touchpoints Approach^TM is based on an extensive body of additional scientific research, practice and program evaluations.

Approach to Relationships

The Touchpoints Approach reminds us every day of the power of strong and positive caregiving relationships in promoting best developmental outcomes for children. Developmental "Touchpoints^TM" can be stressful to parents and providers because Touchpoints disorganize children's behavior and routines. However, Touchpoints offer opportunities for providers to "touch" into the family system, helping parents carefully watch and understand their child's behavior and strengths.

Parents and care providers can then together look forward to periods of regression and disorganization more positively, being supportive of each other and of the child, in stronger shared caregiving partnerships. Parents and providers working together around these "Touchpoints" nurtures the relationship between providers and the children, between providers and the families, and between families and children. This supports families in meeting the needs of their children. Providers have such a powerfully important role in supporting young children and their whole families.

Touchpoints in Early Care and Education

The Touchpoints in Early Care and Education training prepares professionals in the field of early child care and education to incorporate the Touchpoints Approach into their shared care giving with parents within their early childhood setting.

The purpose of the Early Care and Education (ECE) initiative is to work with existing systems and organizations dedicated to quality care to optimize the developmental potential of children. We do so by optimizing the health and functioning of relationships surrounding the care and education of young children in the shared caregiving environment. Central to this purpose are to:

Nurture, renew and professionalize ECE providers
Enhance developmentally informed and appropriate child care
Strengthen family functioning

Touchpoints promotes these goals as the foundation of a child's capacity to learn across the domains of development (social, emotional, cognitive and motor). In doing so, Touchpoints informs and promotes standards of quality in early care and education.

For more information, visit our website.

Based on Dr. T. Berry Brazelton's extensive clinical practice and research, the Touchpoints approach emphasizes the building of supportive alliances between parents and providers around key points in the development of young children. "Touchpoints" are predictable periods in a child's development that can disrupt family relations. These are times of disorganization that we value as opportunities to support family strengths and optimize children's development.
Founder, T. Berry Brazelton, MD

Early Care and Education (ECCE) providers have opportunities for Touchpoints practices every day. These are opportunities to form strong relationships with whole families, partner with parents' strength and vulnerability, and build a shared understanding and honoring of who each unique child is. ECCE providers are vital allies with parents in their children's development.

The Touchpoints in Early Care and Education Initiative offers a two-day professional development opportunity designed to prepare professionals in the field of early child care and education to incorporate the Touchpoints Approach into their shared care giving with parents within their early childhood setting.

Objectives

The ECCE trainings will:

Present the Touchpoints^TM theoretical framework. The focus will be the Touchpoints Developmental and Relational Frameworks, particularly the elements of parent-child-provider relationships in the first six years of a child's life.
Illustrate particular Touchpoints^TM practices through presentations, videotaped encounters, parent quotes, case vignettes and interactive exercises.
Discuss how the Touchpoints^TM Approach can be used to benefit the child, the parents and the educator (e.g., how early childhood educators can use the Touchpoints^TM Approach to help parents deepen their understanding of a child's behavior and establish a more successful system of relationships for all involved).

Touchpoints^TM in ECCE represents a paradigm shift away from the idea of a child attending childcare, and towards the goal of child care providers joining and supporting every family's system of care around their child. The Touchpoints Approach assists in the creation of these shared care giving partnerships.