ALVA, Okla. — The Northwestern Oklahoma State University Department of Social Work is continuing its partnership with Haruv USA to provide a free infant mental health training series.
This training will include a two-part session presenting “Reflective Parenting.”
Dr. Tina Adkins will present the sessions via Zoom on March 2 and March 4 from 1 to 4 p.m.
“These trainings will focus on reflective parenting practices that enhance caregivers’ mentalizing abilities, fostering healthier relational patterns and supporting children’s emotional and behavioral development through the promotion of more secure attachment contexts,” said Dr. Kylene Rehder, chair of the Northwestern department of social work, social work program director and professor of social work.
Adkins is a psychotherapist in private practice, who spent a decade as a professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Texas in Austin. She holds a master of science degree in Developmental Psychoanalytic Psychology and a doctoral degree in Psychoanalytic Studies from University College London and the Anna Freud Center. She is also a Research Fellow with the International Psychoanalytic Association.
Adkins has worked most of her life within child welfare, first as an investigator and later as a clinician and researcher. Her work within family trauma centers around developing and implementing impactful interventions within the field of child welfare, which has resulted in an evidenced-based group mentalizing intervention for foster/adoptive parents called “Family Minds.”
These workshops will focus on reflective parenting interventions which show promise in improving mental health outcomes through increasing a caregiver’s ability to mentalize.
Haruv USA’s webpage describes mentalizing as, “… the skill of being able to see yourself from the outside and others from the inside.” Mentalizing involves the ability to understand behavior in relation to mental states, such as thoughts and feelings, and typically develops within the context of secure attachment.
According to Haruv USA, the ability to be a reflective parent and successfully mentalize has been positively connected to better caregiving, healthier relationships, increased parental satisfaction and lower parenting stress. For children, having a parent who can use this skill positively impacts children’s emotional/social development as well as their ability to regulate their behavior.
“We are thrilled to continue our partnership with Haruv USA and offer training that supports the work in the field of infant and early childhood mental health,” Rehder said. “We encourage students, parents and helping professionals from all disciplines to join us for an exciting afternoon of learning.”
She added that this training is ideal for teachers, social workers, child welfare specialists, counselors and those in the medical field. Haruv USA is an international training institute that provides interprofessional education and training for professionals and students from many settings in the field of child maltreatment. Haruv USA’s innovative programs equip professionals working with abused and neglected children with up-to-date theoretical and empirical knowledge to meet their needs.
Registration for the training is free, and CEUs are available for social work and LPC professionals. To register for this event, visit the Haruv USA webpage.
For more information on the training, contact Rehder at kdrehder@nwosu.edu or DeJon Knapp, Haruv USA Director at the Anne and Henry Zarrow School of Social Work at OU-Tulsa, at dejon@ou.edu.
To learn more about the Northwestern Department of Social Work, visit their webpage.
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