WHY ENGAGE WITH PARENTS ARACY Parent Engagement Conference 2017 Melbourne, June, 2017 Professionals may seek to engage parents for many reasons: Centre for Community Child Health to help individual parents with personal or parenting • AUTHENTIC ENGAGEMENT: problems, THE NATURE AND ROLE OF THE RELATIONSHIP to help parents support their children’s learning, • AT THE HEART OF EFFECTIVE PRACTICE to help groups of parents manage shared issues, • to help communities of parents in addressing common • concerns regarding services and environments, or Tim Moore to collaborate with parents in co-designing, co-managing • Centre for Community Child Health and co-evaluating services. Murdoch Childrens Research Institute The Royal Children’s Hospital To be successful, all of these different forms of engagement depend upon the nature of the relationships that are established between the professionals and the parents. Centre for Community Child Health OUTLINE • Evidence regarding the role and nature of relationships THE ROLE AND NATURE OF • The neurobiology of interpersonal relations RELATIONSHIPS • Key features of effective relationships • Challenges in authentic engagement • Conclusions Centre for Community Child Health Centre for Community Child Health NEUROBIOLOGY OF INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS NEUROBIOLOGY OF INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS • Our brains are designed to respond to and be influenced by others: we are wired to be social • The brain has a network devoted to mindreading others: we have an unparalleled ability to understand the actions and thoughts of those around us, enhancing our ability to stay connected and interact strategically Matthew Lieberman • When human being experience (2013). Social: Why threats or damage to their social Our Brains are Wired to Connect. bonds, the brain responds in much Oxford, UK: Oxford the same way as it responds to University Press. physical pain 1
TWO MODES OF THINKING: System 1 and System 2 NEUROBIOLOGY OF INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS (Kahneman, 2012) • Research on the neurobiology of interpersonal System 1 operates automatically and quickly, with little or • relationships has shown that our brains constantly no effort and no sense of voluntary control, and generates communicate with other people’s brains via the impressions and feelings that are the main source of subconscious high-speed pathways the explicit beliefs and deliberate choices of System 2 • These enable us to register others’ feelings and states System 2 operates deliberately and slowly, is only used • of mind, and enables them to register our’s, which is when the situation demands it, and generates the why we cannot fake being interested, caring or subjective experience of agency, choice, and empathetic concentration • We are intensely social creatures, and our brains are shaped by relationships, for good or otherwise • This is particularly true for children, but relationships continue to play an important role in shaping our health and well-being throughout our lives Centre for Community Child Health TWO MODES OF INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION TWO MODES OF INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION (cont) The difference in processing speed between the fast and Our brains have two parallel pathways for processing • • slow systems is approximately one half second: while it takes conscious and unconscious information 500 – 600 milliseconds for brain activity to register in The first is a set of early-evolving fast systems for our • conscious awareness, our brains process sensory, motor, and senses, motor movements, and bodily processes that we emotional information in 10-50 milliseconds share with other animals and are non-verbal and During this vital half second, our brains work like search inaccessible to conscious reflection • engines, unconsciously scanning our memories, bodies, and Our brains constantly communicate with other people’s • emotions for relevant information, constructing our present brains via subconscious high-speed pathways experience based on a template from the past that our minds view as objective reality. The second is a set of later-evolving slower systems involved • in conscious awareness that eventually gave rise to By the time we become consciously aware of an experience, • narratives, imagination, and abstract thought it has already been processed many times, activated memories, and initiated complex patterns of behaviour 90 per cent of the input to the cortex comes from internal • neural processing, not the outside world Centre for Community Child Health Centre for Community Child Health NEUROBIOLOGY OF INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS COMMUNICATION ACROSS THE SOCIAL SYNAPSE Like neurons, we send and receive When we smile, wave, and say hello, these • messages from one another across a behaviors are sent through the space between us synapse – the social synapse . via sight and sound. The social synapse is the space These electrical and mechanical messages are • between us. It is also the medium received by our senses, converted into through which we are linked together electrochemical signals within our nervous into larger organisms such as families, systems, and sent to our brains. tribes, societies, and the human The electrochemical signals generate chemical species as a whole. changes, electrical activation, and new behaviors, Cozolino, L. (2014). Because so much of this The Neuroscience of • which in turn transmit messages back across the Human Relationships: communication is automatic and below social synapse. Attachment and the Developing Social conscious awareness, most of what Brain (2 nd . Ed.). New goes on is invisible to us and taken for York: W.W. Norton. granted. Cozolino (2006, 2014) 2
NEUROBIOLOGY OF INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS The subconscious pathways enable our brains to read the • body and facial signals of others, and detect their intentions and emotional states The cues we use include facial expressions, pupil dilation, • posture, tone of voice, odour, and mirror systems In effect, our (right) brains are able to communicate directly • with other people’s (right) brains independently of conscious communication processes or awareness. The right brain limbic areas that enable this to occur grow • rapidly in the first two years of life and the nature of their development can have long-term implications. Secure attachment and right brain development (Allan Schore, adapted from Trevarthen, 1993) Centre for Community Child Health EVIDENCE FOR THE IMPORTANCE OF RELATIONSHIPS INTER-BRAIN SYNCHRONISATION Insights regarding the importance of these interpersonal relational processes comes from a variety of sources, including • Lessons from vulnerable families • Research on psychotherapy efficacy • Research on effective help-giving practices • Research on family-centred practice / family-centred care • Research on family partnership training • Community practice Inter-brain synchronization in alpha (blue), beta (orange) and gamma (red) • Co-design and co-production frequency bands related to interactional synchrony during spontaneous imitation of hand movements (Dumas, 2011) Centre for Community Child Health WHAT VULNERABLE FAMILIES NEED Reviews of the evidence (Centre for Community Child Health, 2010; Moore et al., 2012) suggest that what vulnerable and marginalised families need are services that help them feel valued and understood, and that are non-judgmental • and honest , have respect for their inherent human dignity, and are responsive • to their needs, rather than prescriptive, allow them to feel in control and help them feel capable, competent • and empowered, are practical and help them meet their self-defined needs, • are timely, providing help when they feel they need it, not weeks, • months or even years later, and provide continuity of care – parents value the sense of security • Centre for Community Child Health (2010). Engaging marginalised and that comes from having a long-term relationship with the same vulnerable families. CCCH Policy Brief No. 18. Parkville, Victoria: Centre service provider. for Community Child Health, The Royal Children’s Hospital. http://www.rch.org.au/emplibrary/ccch/PB18_Vulnerable_families.pdf Centre for Community Child Health 3
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