“…Building from the original work, in 2011, Condon and a community of home visiting (HV) practitioners conducted the ERHS Proof of Concept Study (Condon, 2017). This project was a 2‐year, qualitative, participatory action research study to assess the feasibility and experiences of incorporating the BHS into a Healthy Families America (HFA) home visiting team.…”
Section: The Development Of the Early Relational Health Screen(erhs)mentioning
Early relational experiences are key drivers for developing social emotional capacities, educational achievement, mental health, physical health, and overall wellbeing. The child health sectors are committed to promotion, prevention, and early intervention that optimize children's health and development, often employing evidence-based screening as foundational practices. Despite a variety of validated parent-infant observational assessment tools, few are practical within busy practice settings, acceptable with all racial and ethnic groups and ready for universal adoption. In response to this need, a team of clinicians, early childhood educators, researchers and infant mental health specialists collaborated to develop and test a novel video-based, dyadic relational screening and monitoring tool, the Early Relational Health Screen (ERHS). This tool uniquely focuses on the early parent-child relationship (6-24 months), within the construct of early relational health (ERH). Initial testing demonstrated that the ERHS is a valid, reliable, feasible, and useful screening and monitoring tool for clinical applications. The ERHS was further developed within a populationbased, prospective research study and adapted with brief video feedback for parents in the home visiting and child health sectors. The ERHS and its adaptations appear to advance ERH and equity within the transforming child health and public health care systems of today.
“…A multigenerational perspective is fundamental (Garner & Yogman, 2021). Relationships babies and family members develop with one another have the potential to hearten both (Condon, 2017).…”
A family-and culturally-centered approach to conversations about early relational health (ERH) can open up opportunities for universal family engagement. The appraisal of family-baby relational health is more trustworthy and useful when there is attunement to family voice and facilitator bias. Early Relational Health Conversations (ERH-C) is a model for ERH promotion and intervention. This model has eight components: preparing and entering the ERH-C space, accessing strength and knowledge in a healing-centered space, pausing and co-creating, storytelling, witnessing, mutual reflection, affirming, and claiming their relationship narrative, and mutual insight. It is a paradigm shift in working with African American families and possibly other historically marginalized families who are also impacted by structural racism. The eight components are explained, and examples are given from the perspective of an Africentric worldview. The importance of cultural humility, attuning to and honoring family culture is emphasized. Insights for implementation in primary care and other settings are provided. Healing-centered engagement practices embedded in ERH-C have the potential to move ERH work into the social justice arena. The ERH-C is a family reflection model. Ideas for future directions for ERH-C are discussed.
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