Presentation date: 9/27/24

Description:
Babies and young do children remember frightening and painful experiences from long before they begin to speak. When young children grow up witnessing and experiencing racialized violence, oppression and related toxic stress, these experiences can have lasting impact that gets passed down the generations. It is critical that they have at least one important person in their lives that can help them feel protected and loved, who can help them make sense of their experiences and understand that what happened to them was not their fault. It is well established by now that investing in Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health services yields much benefits at the societal level.* Child-Parent Psychotherapy is an Evidence-Based Practice for young children and their caregivers that acknowledges how trauma shatters the protective function of the caregiving adult, and facilitates restoration of the caregiver’s role as the child’s rightful protector. This intervention model acknowledges racialized trauma and ruptures that occur at the societal and system-level as well as at the family level, all of which can impact young children. This session will offer insight into the perspective of young children, who are learning everyday about their world, their people and community, and themselves. The session will also discuss the critical importance of partnering with parents and caregivers to help them digest their own trauma and help them reclaim their inherent caregiving wisdom in order to disrupt the cycle of generational trauma.

Presenter:
Haruko Watanabe MA, LMHC, IMH-E®
Reflective Consultant & WA State Child-Parent Psychotherapy Trainer, Navos Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Program
Seattle, WA

Haruko is a Japanese immigrant, who has been on her own racial equity and social justice journey, trying to find her voice along the way and to reclaim the wisdom of her cultural heritage. As a single parent, she strives to learn everyday with her two children what it takes to be good stewards of the lands and the spaces that they occupy and contribute to their community. Haruko is a licensed mental health counselor, who has dedicated two decades of her ‘heart work’ in non-profit organizations, including 16 years in a South King County community mental health agency, co-developing and supporting a dedicated Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Program that offers a continuum of service from promotion, prevention, early intervention and clinical treatment through various partnership with other community organizations and grant funders. She is a Leadership Fellow and instructor at University of Washington Barnard Center’s Advanced Clinical Training Program for clinicians learning to serve infants and young children and families through Diversity-Informed practices. Haruko engages in shared learning with colleagues and communities to explore how impacts of trauma and various systems of oppression show up in everyday practices and works to promote relationship-based healing. She is a Washington State trainer on Child Parent Psychotherapy, an Infant Mental Health mentor and Reflective Consultant, supporting the workforce development in the field of Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health in Washington State.