Simple Interactions April 2022


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"Safe, Stable, and Nurturing Relationships (SSNRs) are promoted in safe, stable, and nurturing families that have access to safe, stable, and nurturing communities with a wide range of resources and services."

Andrew Garner, MD, PhD, FAAP, Michael Yogman, MD, FAAP, 2021 policy statement about relational health by the American Academy of Pediatrics

What We Are Writing

Dr. Tom Akiva released a new book, It Takes an Ecosystem: Understanding the People, Places, and Possibilities of Learning and Development Across Settings. You can also check out a blog series by the various authors, entitled, “Changing the Odds: A Community Dialogue on What It Will Take” by the various authors included in the book. Dr. Li and Dr. Winters contributed this blog to the series: "Everything We Need to Learn About Relationships, We Learn from Simple, Everyday Interactions".

Where We Are Speaking/Listening

Dr. Winters and Dr. Li recently spoke with parents with a talk entitled "Children’s Resilience and the Importance of Everyday Interactions" as part of the Glenbard Parent Series. They led a discussion on human interactions and their place when it comes to interacting with children.

We really appreciated the opportunity to engage families, as we most often work with the helping professionals. While the relational principles are the same, we focused on the idea that simple, ordinary moments matter the most in parents’ lives. Dr. Winters brought video stories of everyday moments sent in by parents. We wanted to share this beautiful reflection from a parent named Jerica (with her permission), who also happened to be running the zoom session that night for the series. We just absolutely love the story – thanks to Jerica and her whole family!

I had an ah-ha moment! My daughter has Down syndrome, and it totally occurred to me that I'm not connecting with her during everyday moments like getting dressed, brushing teeth, etc. I am focused on getting through the routines so we can get to the fun stuff. Who knew I was actually missing the fun stuff! Thank you for the reminder that everyday moments count just as much as planned activities, maybe even more so! She can intuitively tell the difference when I'm "with" her rather than directing her. I know Marlee will benefit when I stop herding her along and give us enough time to experience and value the moments we share instead of just moving through and checking tasks off my list.

What We Are Working On

A young baby is held to the chest of a male caregiver as he looks at the child.

Early Relational Health Study

At the request of the Burke Foundation, Dr. Li and his team at with the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE), are conducting a field scan to report on the emerging science and intervention principles for “early relational health (ERH)”.

The goals of this research and practice review are to:

Conduct a review of existing research to better understand the emerging concept of supporting early relational health between children birth to age three and their families;
Summarize how ERH is currently defined within the early childhood ecosystem and related areas and fields;
Profile initiatives and interventions with strong ERH goals to better understand the principles underlying their designs;
Explore how best to communicate ERH to a broad range of stakeholders including families, professionals, and policymakers.

More information can be found on the Burke Foundation website. We will share the full report here in May after it is officially released.

What We are Reading/Thinking About

We would like share this policy statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics summarizing the science and implications of “relational health” for children, families and communities. Here is a podcast where the co-author, Dr. Andrew Garner, speaks about the importance of taking a public health approach to promote relational health. This position statement represents three important ideas in how we as a field talk about relationships: 1) Adversity is not destiny, and relationships build resilience and health; 2) Relational health are parallel processes, and what we do for the children, we need to do for families and for communities; 3) We can advocate for change from the asset-based, rather than merely deficit-based, perspective – focusing on what is relationally healthy and protective.

The full statement is also available on the AAP's website.

Simple Interactions

The development of the Simple Interactions approach included contributions from many individuals and institutions.

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