Domestic Ongoing Core Education
Learning to Connect with Your Child
Our ongoing core education courses were created to take parents deeper into the subjects of bonding and attachment and the practical how-tos of parenting a child from a hard place using Trust-Based Relational Intervention® (TBRI®). These classes—while both practical and idea-rich—will add valuable insights into the personalities and temperaments of each individual in your home. Through each series of articles, videos, and assessments, you’ll learn how to further connect and engage with your child. We’ll explore obstacles and challenges, and the tools needed to develop a healthy, secure bond. In our advanced level classes, you will also delve further into your own background and learn how you can heal and grow into even better and more prepared parents.
The 8 classes in this bundle total 20 hours.
Class 201
The Importance of Playful Engagement
In this class, we’ll discuss how to confront challenging moments through playful interaction, and provide practical tools for daily encouragement for children with a background of trauma. This class also explores ways to make play fun for yourself and your child, and why play can often be difficult for adults.
2.0 Hours • $60
Enroll in Class 201
Class 202
Healing and Healthy Touch
Science, and our own hearts tell us that everyone needs physical affection, but it can be difficult to know how to approach a child when touch has been absent or abusive in their lives. This course offers practical tools based in TBRI for how to be affectionate with a child with a history of trauma and loss, as well as how to recognize and bring healing to sexualized behavior and introduce a child to your family culture of healthy touch. The 40-minute TBRI video, “Healthy Touch” is included in this course.
2 Hours • $60
Enroll in Class 202
Class 203
Exploring the Sensory World
This course explores the ways in which we experience the world through the 5 senses and different coping mechanisms for sensory overload. In this segment, we’ll also discuss the importance of respect for our own, as well as our children’s bodies. The 90-minute TBRI-focused video “A Sensory World” is included in this course.
2 Hours • $60
Enroll in Class 203
Class 204
Healing Through Attachment
Through an attachment assessment and detailed narratives, you’ll learn about the 4 types of adult attachment styles and discover your own attachment inclination. Gaining insight into individual strengths and challenges becomes a valuable tool in enhancing attachment in all of your relationships.
3 Hours • $90
Enroll in Class 204
Class 205
Your Story: Healing & Attachment
Central to this class is the wisdom we’ll draw from Michael Orlans and Terry Levy and their book Healing Parents: Helping Wounded Children Learn to Love and Trust. Resources and valuable insights are provided to help parents and caregivers develop trust and create healthy self-worth in every relationship.
4 Hours • $120
Enroll in Class 205
Class 206
Nurturing Secure Connections
Every parent and caregiver wonders what is going on in the minds of the children they care for. Actions, behaviors, words, and deeds can baffle the mind of the most caring and rational adult! In this course, we’ll explore the possibility that everything a child does stems from his or her natural desire to learn, explore, and grow, to launch and return to a secure embrace.
2 Hours • $60
Enroll in Class 206
Class 207
Parenting From a Secure Base
The longing to ‘belong’ is central to every heart. The practical, grace-filled examples of TBRI principles—empowering, connecting, and correcting—will become the bedrock of the foundation you are building as you care for children. The 120-minute video “Empowering, Connecting, Correcting” is included in this class.
3 Hours • $90
Enroll in Class 207
Class 208
The Importance of Forming Bonds and Cocooning
In this class, we’ll remind you of the importance of cocooning and forming lasting bonds, what sort of transitional challenges could be ahead, give you some ideas for honoring your child’s origins, and maybe even pique your curiosity about how we want to support you and stay connected as your family grows.
2 Hours • $60
Enroll in Class 208
Additional Advanced Courses
Class 210
Learning to Listen to Children
Building connection and a healthy relationship with a child means entering their world. Inviting their stories, even when they are difficult to hear, listening with compassion, and practicing the art of ‘being with’ gives children a safe place to share. In this course we’ll explore how to give children voice and gain understanding about their experiences to help care for them well.
1.5 Hours • $45
Enroll in Class 210
Class 301
Siblings and Family Integration
Foster care and adoption impacts each individual in the family differently. Adding a new family member, and all of the likes, dislikes, passions, and personality that come along with them, can throw the groove off of even the most flexible of families. Having realistic expectations, practicing the possibilities, and remembering what’s already true about your family, helps makes for an easier transition when adding a new sibling – temporarily or permanently. This course will address the needs and concerns of both parents and children already in your home.
1.5 Hours • $45
Enroll in Class 301
Class 302
TBRI for Teens: Connecting with Older Children
Meeting the needs and bonding with a teenager or an older child who has a history of trauma and loss, comes with its own set of challenges. A teen who is beginning to question their situation, identity and relationships can require a whole new list of best practices for parents, caregivers and professionals. In this course we’ll introduce the short video “Toxic Stress & the Brain” as well as the two-part series, “TBRI for Teens.”
2 Hours • $60
Enroll in Class 302
Class 303.1
TBRI: Empowering, Connecting, Correcting Part I
This course provides the practical examples and role-playing needed for parents, caregivers and professionals to learn how to empower children to physically and emotionally attune to a safe caregiver. You’ll come away with the tools and encouragement needed to connect with children in a meaningful, healthy way, while also learning strategies to help them course-correct when things get hard. The first session of the video “Empowering, Connecting, Correcting” is included in this course.
2 Hours • $60
Enroll in Class 303.1
Class 303.2
TBRI: Empowering, Connecting, Correcting Part II
This course continues the practical examples and role-playing needed for parents, caregivers and professionals to learn how to empower children to physically and emotionally attune to a safe caregiver. The second session of the video “Empowering, Connecting, Correcting” is also included in this course.
2 Hours • $60
Enroll in Class 303.2
Class 304
Facilitating Behavioral Change
Discover the science behind the behaviors of vulnerable children. Dr. Purvis provides dozens of examples of TBRI strategies to deal with the behaviors of the children you care for who’ve come to you after experiences of trauma and loss in their lives. It’s a joy to watch Dr. Purvis bring order, security, and contentment into tough situations with children. The 86-minute video “Facilitating Behavioral Change” is included in this course.
2 Hours • $60
Enroll in Class 304
Class 306
Racial Makeup of Families & Identity of Children through Adoption
Families whose children have ethnicities different from their own face unique challenges in family life, community, and culture. Your child’s experience is different from your own—and there must be space for them to express those experiences and feelings. This course will help families discover ways to honor their child’s birth culture as well as the community that they’ve brought their child “home” to join.
2 Hours • $60
Enroll in Class 306
Class 307
Safety and Children with Sexualized Behaviors
Very sadly, the children who come into our homes temporarily or permanently have sometimes had almost unspeakable experiences that loving parents and caregivers can’t even imagine. To bring healing, we must fiercely and unashamedly come alongside our children. In this course we’ll address topics of safety for every family member, how the symptoms of sexual abuse can present in children of all ages, and how to begin steps toward healing.
1.5 Hours • $45
Enroll in Class 307
Class 308
Developmental Milestones
Although every child’s development is unique, children who come to us from challenging backgrounds have even more ‘unique’ needs. As parents and caregivers we want to empower these children holistically—facilitating growth in mind, body and spirit—so they can reach their full potential. This course will provide a deeper understanding of child development, examining potential emotional triggers that will help you better meet children’s needs as they grow.
2.5 Hours • $75
Enroll in Class 308
Class 309
Exploring the Realities of Transracial Adoption
Families are Forever is partnering with Be the Bridge in the important conversation surrounding the topic of transracial adoption and caregiving. Be the Bridge is a faith-based organization that believes in truth-telling, humility, respect, confession, grace, and justice. The vision of Be the Bridge is for people and organizations to gain awareness and respond to the racial brokenness and systemic injustice in the world, and that people are no longer conditioned by a racialized society but grounded in the truth where all are equipped to flourish. This course will allow you to step into an intentional study of race, adoption and culture.
6 Hours • $120
Enroll in Class 309
Class 315.1
Sexual Development, Disruption & Healing 1
Discussion of sexual development and any challenges around this topic and our children is often uncomfortable for caregivers and parents – yet, as the adults in our children’s lives we must find ways to normalize healthy behavior and to meet their needs. In this two-part course you will become familiar with normative sexual development and behaviors as well as the dynamics of sexual abuse. We’ll explore basic caregiving skills to utilize with children/youth who have experienced sexual abuse or display problematic sexual behaviors.
2 Hours • $60
Enroll in Class 315.1
Class 315.2
Sexual Development, Disruption & Healing 2
This course continues our discussion from Part 1 around the topics of sexual development and challenges. It’s pretty common that these are uncomfortable subjects for caregivers and parents – yet, as the adults in our children’s lives we must find ways to normalize healthy behavior and to meet their needs.
3 Hours • $90
Enroll in Class 315.2