CL22 - Practice Plenary: Bridging Relationships: A Deeper Look at the Co-Created Intervention Experience

Only available as part of a package

Child development, promotion, prevention, and intervention all occur within the context of a relationship. This plenary will examine the task of bridging relationships. What does the early childhood professional bring in terms of their experience and cultural lens to their relationships with children and families? Children and families are holding their relationship with the early childhood professional, relationship history, cultural lens, and much more. How do issues of social injustice, structural racism, microaggression, and implicit bias impact these relationships? Explore ways we can contribute to powerful and positive bridge building across and through our relationships.

Barbara Stroud

Psychologist

Private Practice

Barbara Stroud, PhD, is a licensed psychologist with over three decades worth of culturally informed clinical practice in early childhood development and mental health. She is a founding organizer and the inaugural president (2017-2019) of the California Association for Infant Mental Health, a member of the Academy of ZERO TO THREE Fellows, and holds prestigious endorsements as an Infant and Family Mental Health Specialist/Reflective Practice Facilitator Mentor. In 2018 Dr. Stroud was honored with the Bruce D. Perry Spirit of the Child Award. Embedded in all of her trainings, clinical service models, and consultations are the activities of reflective practice and sensitivity to cultural uniqueness. Dr. Stroud's book "How to Measure a Relationship" [published 2012] is improving infant mental health practices around the globe and is now available in Spanish. Her newest text, an Amazon best seller "Intentional Living: finding the inner peace to create successful relationships" [an Amazon Best Seller] walks the reader through a deeper understanding of how their brain influences relationships. Both volumes are currently available on Amazon. Additionally, Dr. Stroud is a contributing author to the text "Infant and early childhood mental health: Core concepts and clinical practice" edited by Kristie Brandt, Bruce Perry, Steve Seligman, & Ed Tronick.

Eva Marie Shivers (Moderator)

Executive Director

Indigo Cultural Center

Dr. Eva Marie Shivers, J.D., Ph.D. is the founder and executive director of Indigo Cultural Center, a non-profit action research firm located in the stolen lands of Tohono O’odham and Hohokam (AKA: Phoenix, AZ).

She identifies as a bi-racial African American, able-bodied, cis-gendered woman and is the proud Mama of a beautiful African American, 11-year-old boy who is neuro-divergent. She is an action-based researcher and evaluator working at the crossroads of infant and early childhood mental health (IECMH) and early care and education. She is a dancer/yoga practitioner, and practices embodied healing. Dr. Shivers is an equity harmonizer and healer (i.e., equity trainer and facilitator). Her professional work facilitating conversations about racial equity and early childhood is closely aligned with my spiritual life and deeply held convictions about humanity.

For the past 15 years, Dr. Shivers has been providing early childhood racial equity training and consultation to infant and early childhood community agencies and state departments around the country and have been a frequent keynote speaker at infant and early childhood mental health conferences around the country. For the past 22 years, she has provided child care research policy consultation to federal, state and local government agencies and administrators. Dr. Shivers has also provided early childhood racial equity policy consultation to several federal administrations – including the Obama and Biden administrations. She is a proud ZERO TO THREE Fellow (2005-2007) and was on faculty at the Harris Infant Mental Health Training Institute in Phoenix, AZ for seven years. For the past 5 years, she mostly serves the IECMH workforce around the country – including reflective supervisors and leaders, and specifically the IECMH consultation workforce.