Adelphi University  Institute for Parenting

Addressing the Long-term Consequences of Toxic Stress from Chronic Neglect Through the Use of the Neuro-relational Framework (NRF)

While neglect is often seen as having an immediate need for intervention, the long-term consequences are often overlooked or not understood. In 2010, neglect accounted for 78% of all child maltreatment cases nationwide, far more than physical abuse (17%), sexual abuse (9%), and psychological abuse (8%) combined. Three long term effects of neglect include core concepts that organize neurodevelopment: 1) developing toxic versus adaptive stress, 2) the lack of “serve and return” interactions that fire and wire the brain architecture, and 3) cumulative effects on the integrity of the brain networks.

The Neurorelational Framework (NRF; Lillas &Turnbull, 2009) provides a common unifying language amongst team members and ensures a “neuroprotective” approach aimed at these exact core concepts that apply to the specific context of neglect, as well as underlying dimensions to many diagnostic categories: 1) reducing and eliminating toxic stress patterns, 2) improving serve and return interactions and 3) bolstering critical, early brain development. An introduction to these three steps will be given through the use of video-based examples and a video-based case presentation. Participants will learn to identify stress responses and toxic stress patterns; socio-emotional milestones for assessing the quality of engagement ; as well as  discriminate between “bottom-up” behaviors and interventions and “top-down” behaviors and interventions using the Neurorelational Framework.

About the Instructor

Connie Lillas, Ph.D., MFT, RN, is the Director of the Interdisciplinary Training Institute with a background in high-risk maternal-child nursing, family systems, developmental psychoanalysis, and is a National Graduate ZERO TO THREE Fellow. Connie has a full-time private practice, specializing in dual diagnosis across both developmental delays and mental health concerns for birth-to-five-year-olds and their families. She donates her community service time to a pilot called Fostering Family Partnerships where she serves as a Court Team Liaison for child welfare reform in Los Angeles in South Central Los Angeles. Her duties include training court personnel from judges to social workers to infant mental health specialists. In addition, she trains local, national, and international cross-sector communities on the use of the  Neurorelational Framework (NRF, 2009) as a common and unifying language that all sectors can use in an effort to decrease discipline-specific fragmentation and to increase cross-sector collaboration. Her book is a part of W. W. Norton’s Interpersonal Neurobiology Series.

Registration

Program begins promptly at 9:00 a.m.