winter 2020 redgen newsletter
Welcome to your quarterly REDgen newsletter! Here's where we'll send you REDgen team updates and let you know what we're up to in the community. Looking for more information? Check out redgen.org.
INTRODUCING CIRCLES OF SECURITY
Circle of Security Parenting (COSP) is a group-based, relationally focused intervention that supports parent-child relationships. It uses videos to help parents understand their role in meeting the relational needs and identifying the relational vulnerabilities within the parent-child relationship. COSP was developed out of decades of attachment research, and is used both as prevention and intervention. Outcomes have shown improved relational attunement, reduction of problematic child behaviors, and overall parental competence and well-being.
COSP is empirically validated with parents and caregivers of children aged 0-6 years old. By helping parents to identify and meet the core emotional needs of their children, they lay the foundation for a secure attachment and provide them with the tools to support the development of their children's mental health. COSP classes consist of 8-12 parents and caregivers who meet weekly for 1.5 hours for 8 weeks.
REDgen will be bringing a trainer to the Milwaukee area in April to train facilitators for Circle of Security Parenting. This four-day training is to "train the trainer." Those who complete training can facilitate Circle of Security Parenting (COSP) with groups of parents/caregivers. We believe the COSP classes are best when brought into an already existing group by someone from the community.
Become a Circle of Security Parenting (COSP) Facilitator
REDgen is brining in COSP trainer, Neil Boris, to provide a facilitator training session right here in the Milwaukee area!
"Train the Trainer”
Dates: 04/28-05/01
Location: Jewish Community Center in Whitefish Bay
about neil boris
Neil is a graduate of Grinnell College and the Tufts University School of Medicine. After completing his residency training at Brown University in pediatrics, adult and child psychiatry, Neil embarked on a research career focusing on the social and emotional development of high-risk children—especially those under five years of age.
His research has ranged from studying early intervention programs serving high-risk families in the U.S. to capturing the impact of community-based programs for orphans in Rwanda and Malawi. He has also always been a clinician and teacher, working in a variety of clinical settings from multi-disciplinary programs focused on young maltreated children to hospital-based practice with children with life-threatening illnesses or community-based programs serving substance-abusing parents and their young children.
Neil has been a tenured Full Professor at Tulane University (in both public health and medicine) where his passion for teaching and training was awarded with a Teaching Scholar Award. He's held several leadership positions, including being an associate editor of the Infant Mental Health Journal, serving on the editorial board of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry to being on the board of directors of the World Association of Infant Mental Health. Neil lives in a lakeside home in Orlando, Florida with his wife, Adena, their three children— Jackie, Cooper and Andy—and his mother, Marylynn. He views life as a grand adventure and sees Circle of Security as a positive force in the world.
you’re invited
q&a with lori gottlieb
We got to sit down to chat with best-selling author, Lori Gottlieb, author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone. You can read the start our conversation below, and finish reading it on our website but you can also meet Lori Gottlieb at our fundraising event on March 16th!
In your experience, what is the importance of youth mental health?
"I think youth mental health is so important for a number of reasons. The first is that people learn about their emotional health and how to take care of themselves when they’re growing up. I think it’s really important to give people the tools to handle the vicissitudes of our emotions, to recognize warning signs when they feel like they need to reach out and get help, to take away stigma around getting help, to normalize struggle – that we all go through things – and I think that young people especially feel like they’re the only ones going through whatever they’re going through because people don’t necessarily talk about it. There’s a lot of maybe they’re embarrassed, maybe they’re ashamed, and especially I think in this world of Instagram and social media […] of course, intellectually they realize “Oh, that’s a curated version of somebody’s life.” But I think it’s really hard when they’re seeing all these images of everybody’s seemingly perfect lives and they’re experiencing something else. So I also think they need to learn about being able to find a person that they can talk to, and knowing that the longer that they wait, the harder it’s going to be. It’s a prevention model; if something feels wrong with their bodies they’re not going to wait until they’re very, very sick before they tell someone or they go to a doctor. But we want them to do that with mental health problems: “Something feels off. It’s not a crisis, but I’m having a hard time.” That’s when you want them to be talking, and you want it to be ongoing conversations. You don’t want it to be like people never talk about this. You want it to be an environment where people talk all the time about what’s going on with them, and how they’re feeling, and how they’re struggling, and how they’re getting through it."
introducing liz
REDgen has added a director of fundraising, Liz Girsch! Read below to learn more about our newest staff member.
Liz Girsch has served as the director of fundraising since 2020. Liz is the owner of NEAT Method Milwaukee and is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin - Madison. She has a background in public relations, fundraising and event planning. Her previous work includes positions with Children's Wisconsin, the Make-A-Wish Wisconsin and the Milwaukee Brewers. She lives in Cedarburg with her husband and three teenagers.
other upcoming redgen events
Parents, students and anyone who works with youth are invited to join this documentary screening and discussion!
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