I have just finished listing to a CD set of recordings from last year’s ATTACh conference; a day-long workshop entitled: Seeds of Hope: Promising Interventions for At-Risk Children. The CD order form is here.

The speakers, Dr. Karyn Purvis and Dr. David Cross are the developers of the Institute of Child Development at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth. Their research training and service are focused on special needs children who have been adopted into caring families.

We believe these children and families are best served by an interdisciplinary approach that combines empathy and warmth with structure and behavioral goals. This approach is based on a solid foundation of neuropsychological theory and research, tempered by humanitarian principles. Our goal is to extend this healing environment, through training and advocacy, into the home and educational settings of children who have come from "hard places."

Sounds right up our alley, right? Especially those who have adopted institutionalized kids!

The Hope Connection program offers a summer day camp for adopted children The camp offers opportunities to assess and address PI kids many needs. One of the unique cornerstones of The Hope Connection is that these researchers/clinicians are monitoring the neurotransmitter levels of their camp participants (and their parents). They are finding out some remarkable things. Targeted amino acid therapy (TAAT) then becomes part of the camp’s program, to help these children’s neurobiology stabilize and their brain chemistry normalize.

By collecting the saliva of their campers before attending camp, during and after, they have been able to show that cortisol levels of the campers have dropped (significantly in many cases). They have also been able to correlate that with marked changes in behaviors seen by the researchers, but especially the parents.

Another fabulous by-product of this endeavor has been the creation of a Special Needs Adoption Course (SNAC):

a university-credit course, which is taught during the spring semester in which students learn about the complex constellation of effects induced in children by abuse and neglect. An interdisciplinary course, SNAC is taught by specialists in various fields including language, social work, neurology, nursing and psychology. Students must not only learn academic information about the aftermath of abuse, but must also demonstrate mastery of pragmatic skills for interacting with these at-risk children.

In Dr. Purvis’ own words:

“One of the greatest joys of our work is the knowledge that each spring we have an opportunity to teach 80 or 90 university students who will enter professions such as teaching, nursing, and psychology, and will have unique skills and insights into dealing with children.”

Over the next few days, I want to share with you some of the many things I learned from the CD of the presentation these professionals gave last fall.

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