SafeCare is currently piloting the SafeCare App with a small test group. We are very excited about the eventual roll-out of our app with all interested sites and will keep you all updated with any news in upcoming newsletters!
Inaugural SafeCare External Trainer Meeting
On April 18th-19th, the NSTRC team convened with its External Trainers for our Inaugural External Trainer Meeting. The meeting was a great success, and we enjoyed being able to gather with our external partners to discuss pertinent topics to SafeCare delivery. See below for an overview of the Meeting by Director of Training, Dr. Jenelle Shanley Chatham.
The NSTRC team with our amazing External Trainers!
In April we held our first meeting with SafeCare Trainers from around the U,S. This was such an amazing experience for everyone involved. The mission of the meeting was to establish a mutually beneficial community to foster the dissemination and implementation of SafeCare. A total of twenty-three SafeCare Trainers attended, representing 18 agencies from California, Colorado, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and Washington state. We discussed how to foster the SafeCare Community and promote SafeCare across the country. Several activities also encouraged the Trainers from the various sites to get to know each other. These activities were a major highlight of the meeting and sparked conversation around ways to keep SafeCare Trainers connected as they return to their agencies and SafeCare implementations. We also discussed how Trainers can maintain their certification, similar to how Providers and Coaches maintain certification at their respective training levels.
NSTRC would like thank each of the SafeCare Trainers and their agencies for taking the time and putting forth the funds to bring us all together. It was truly an inspirational meeting. Based on the enthusiasm of this meeting, we anticipate hosting our 2nd SafeCare Trainer Meeting in 2017, and we are considering options for a National SafeCare Conference.
Dr. Shannon Self-Brown, Associate Director for Research and Development, and Dr. Jenelle Shanley Chatham, Associate Director of Training,
NSTRC Director, Dr. John Lutzker, presents on the history and development of SafeCare at our Inaugural External Trainer Meeting.
SafeCare in Action
We love hearing our Providers' stories about SafeCare in the home. Recently, a SafeCare Provider at the Exchange Club's Family Center in Graham, North Carolina saw the direct effects of SafeCare with a father and his young infant daughter, as well as its utility as a tool to reduce risk of child neglect.
"The Family Center was working with a young dad and his 4 month-old in the agency’s Adolescent Parent Support Program. This program works with young parents to help them provide a healthy start for their 0-5 children. The infant daughter was placed temporarily outside of the home while safety issues were resolved in the dad’s case plan with Child Protective Services. The infant was 2 months old upon removal and concerns existed in the attachment of the child with her father. The dad agreed to work on the PII module first to address his own concerns about attachment. The baby’s affect upon arrival back home was flat, and she was showing other signs of inconsistent attachment. The young dad embraced the module immediately, practicing skills both in the sessions and for homework during the week. Over the course of the 6 weeks of the module, the I saw the attachment of the baby change for the positive and the young dad was able to improve his own bond with the baby using the SafeCare PII skills.
Today the baby continues to show signs of positive attachment, and she is able to engage with Dad in a way that has dramatically improved his responsiveness to her. Dad is also projecting how to adapt SafeCare Parent-Infant Interaction skills to his daughter’s future stages of development. SafeCare proved to be an essential component in taking a risky reunification and making it successful for both the child and the young dad. Dad is now confident that he can meet his daughter’s needs! THANK YOU, SAFECARE!!"
Have a story from the field you would like to share in our next newsletter? We would love to hear it! Please share with your NSTRC Trainer or contact ljones129@gsu.edu to have it featured.
Shannon's Science Corner
Toys vs. Books: Which Is Best for Parent-child Interaction?
Ever wonder when you are working with families what kinds of playtime activities are best? A new journal article published in the prestigious journal Pediatrics examined this very question! The researcher, Dr. Sosa, examined the playtime of activities of 26 parent-child dyads (children ranged in age from 10 to 16 months).
The outcome of interest was how the type of toy used during play time influenced the amount of parent-child communication during the play activity. As we all know, the number of words caregivers use with their children during the first few years of life predicts child language and academic success. Dr. Sosa found that when the parent and child played with an electronic toy (battery-operated, educational toys with buttons and switches that can be manipulated to produce lights, words, & songs) there were fewer parent words spoken and fewer child vocalizations that when the play activity included traditional toys or books. In sum, play with electronic toys is associated with decreased quantity and quality of language input compared with play with books or traditional toys. This suggests that when talking to our SafeCare parents about the best ways to promote early language development with their children, we should discourage electronic toys, and recommend traditional toys and books as the preferred activity.
To access the entire article and read more about healthy parent-child interaction, click here.
Around the World!
We are very excited about the dissemination of SafeCare throughout the world. Check out all of our current North American implementations on the map below! Click on the map to open up our interactive Google map and see our international sites across the globe.
International SafeCare Research: UK & Israel
Our partners at the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) in the United Kingdom and the Haruv Institute in Ashdod, Israel, have both published an evaluation of SafeCare's impact on parents and providers as part of their current research on evidence-based parenting programs.
View or download the full report from the Haruv Institute here and the full NSPCC report here.
