Los Alamos County First Born staff: home visitor Amy Wei, program managers Molly McBranch and Kim Ferguson and home visitor Tara Adams. Photo by Andrea Multari/LANL Foundation
Dr. Bruce Perry, early childhood brain and trauma expert, speaks to a crowd of more than 300 home visitors and early childhood educators at Tuesday’s First Born conference. Photo by Andrea Multari, LANL Foundation.
LANL Foundation First Born Los Alamos program managers Molly McBranch and Kim Ferguson remind staff of the importance of self-care in addition to serving families. Photo by Andrea Multari/LANL FoundationLANLF News:
More than 300 early childhood home visitors, educators, professionals and supporters from throughout the state gathered Tuesday for the First Born Conference at the Hyatt Regency Tamaya.
The conference, hosted by the LANL Foundation, featured keynote speaker Bruce D. Perry, M.D., Ph.D., Senior Fellow of The Child Trauma Academy in Houston and adjunct Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago.
Dr. Perry discussed “The Power of Early Childhood” in relation to his research and work with mental health and neuroscienceto improve the lives of high-risk children and the crucial importance of childhood experience in shaping the health of the individual, and ultimately, society.
The earliest experiences define the template for future interactions with other people throughout life. “Stress response and reward networks in the brain are shaped by relationships in early childhood—in healthy and unhealthy ways,” Perry said.
Research has shown that early trauma and adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs, have predictable, negative effects on brain development in children and can lead to mental health problems, social challenges, substance abuse, violence and even suicide.
Positive experiences with a primary caregiver early in life—including touch, proximity, responsiveness, sensory simplicity and relational continuity—create sensations of pleasure and safety, decrease physiological distress and allow for patterns of self-regulating to develop.
The benefit of the brain is that it is incredibly malleable. Positive relationships are an even greater determining factor for development than experienced adversity. Strong family and cultural anchors can lower risk and increase resiliency in children.
Dr. Perry’s experience has led many community and government agencies to consult him following high-profile incidents involving traumatized children such as the Oklahoma City bombing, Columbine school shootings, September 11th terrorist attacks, Hurricane Katrina and Sandy Hook Elementary school shootings.
Dr. Perry explained to the group why their role in the lives of children is so influential. “The briefest contact with a child if given with respect, honesty and sincerity can make a significant impact, especially in situations of poverty or trauma.”
“The achievement gap has nothing to do with color. It has everything to do with stress,” Perry said. “Poverty creates a baseline level of stress. The more a child feels threatened, the more active and alert the brain functions on a primal level. “You cannot develop new, unique neural connections to learn and create in a state of high arousal.”
The challenge is to understand the developmental history of the family and create relational connections and an individualized set of therapeutic activities to “meet a family where they are.”
Perry’s final message to home visitors and early childhood educators stressed the importance of their work. “Supporting and forming relationships create the mechanisms by which learning takes place,” he said. “Progress is trans-generational and can’t be measured in a three-year time frame. You are making an impact, even if this generation does not see the immediate results of your work.”
In addition to Tuesday’s conference, First Born staff from the 10 programs serving 15 New Mexico counties attended a prior day of knowledge sharing and teambuilding. Program staff and home visitors made presentations on topics such as breastfeeding, communication and literacy challenges, cultural awareness, family recruitment and retention, teen parenting, the parallel process of home visitors and the importance of their own self-care to deal with stress and avoid burnout.
Staff from the newly reopened First Born Los Alamos tapped onto the resources of the other established programs, asking them to share advice for success. The program has been up and running for less than two months after regaining funding from the State of New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department and support of the LANL Foundation.
First Born is a free elective curriculum-based, relationship-centered home visiting program beginning prenatally for women pregnant for the first time and first-time families and their newborns. The program is based on research showing that children’s success in school and life is built on the foundation of relationships, experiences, and skills they develop in the first three years.
LANL Foundation CEO Susan Herrera spoke of the journey of First Born from the original program established by Vicki Johnson in 1997 in Silver City and the Foundation’s role in the program’s evolution, replication and RAND Corporation evaluation.
“It’s time for a shift,” Herrera said. “We need to continue looking for opportunities to work collectively to change the state’s thinking on early childhood education. My mission is to take First Born home visiting statewide.”
Anna Marie Garcia, First Born Program Director at the LANL Foundation, described the two-day conference as a call to action.
“We need to work within the context of positive, caring relationships and help build healthy families through an understanding of the importance of responsiveness to infants’ needs and regulation through music, movement, and rhythm. This is what First Born does,” Garcia said. “When we invest in our families, we invest in our future.”
For more information about First Born, visit lanlfoundation.org/first-born, https:////www.firstbornprogram.org/ or contact Anna Marie Garcia at annamg@lanlfoundtion.org or 505.753.8890. Additional information about Dr. Perry may be found at https:////childtrauma.org/.