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The Brazelton Touchpoints Center (BTC) held its second National Substance Use Disorder (SUD) Summit, Families in Recovery: The First 1,000 Days – Pregnancy, Newborns, and the First Years, on Wednesday, February 1, 2023, from 11 AM – 5:30 PM ET / 8 AM – 2:30 PM PT.
Families in recovery are the experts on their families and their children — and on the unique challenges and opportunities of their first 1,000 days. This year, BTC invited family members with lived experience with SUD, including those who now devote their lives to supporting other families in recovery, to share with us their expertise.
This all-day virtual summit featured three nationwide conversations on peer-recovery approaches to centering family voice; building on families’ strengths, resources, and wisdom; and shifting power to overcome racial and economic inequities in access to treatment and other resources.
Conversation 1: Preconception and Pregnancy (11:30 AM – 1:00 PM ET / 8:30 – 10:00 AM PT)
Moderated by Eurnestine Brown, Ph.D., Director of Equity and Belonging, Brazelton Touchpoints Center
The traumas that the majority of adults with SUD experience often begin — or continue — before and between conception. Often, they continue through pregnancy. Yet the vulnerabilities of these times of life can also be opportunities — to begin and deepen relationships that endure through the ups and downs of recovery, to connect with the supports needed to rebuild lives that SUD has dismantled, and to engage in treatment that can protect the fetus and pregnant people.
In this conversation, parents with lived experiences and frontline providers shared what they have learned on the recovery journey before and during pregnancy. Together, we spotlighted strengths-based approaches that value birth equity, are inclusive, and create communities of belonging while also addressing the isolation, fear, trauma, loss, and grief experienced by expectant and birthing families as they move toward healing and transformation.
Conversation 2: The Newborn (1:30 – 3:00 PM ET / 10:30 – 12:00 PM PT)
Moderated by Jayne Singer, Ph.D., IECMH-E®, Director of Developmental and Relational Health, Brazelton Touchpoints Center
Newborns showing signs of withdrawal can be challenging to care for, undermining new parents’ confidence and trust in their skills and relationship. Yet the new responsibility of caring for a newborn can motivate parents to seek treatment and strive for recovery. Unfortunately, when seeking support for themselves and their infants, birthing families in recovery all too often face stigma — stigma that can reactivate stress responses of distrust and withdrawal.
Still, the vulnerability of the newborn period provides an opportunity for parents, infants, and providers to join together to focus on strengths and healing in relationships. In this conversation, we heard about the many ways that infancy can offer us hope for the child’s development and for parents’ recovery journey.
Conversation 3: Infants and Toddlers (3:30 – 5:00 PM ET / 12:30 – 2:00 PM PT)
Moderated by Joshua Sparrow, MD, Executive Director, Brazelton Touchpoints Center
The first years of life can be challenging and exhausting for all parents. Children are just learning how to regulate their feelings and behaviors, require more time and energy than many parents feel they have, and need access to concrete, material resources, such as food, safe housing, and health care. For parents living with SUD, these challenges can feel overwhelming. Adults with SUD need time and energy for their own recovery, often struggle with their own self-regulation due to prior or ongoing trauma, and may be catching up on their own development that SUD and trauma have derailed.
In this conversation, we discussed how the vulnerabilities of this period can be opportunities for providers to build trusting relationships with parents that promote their motivation for recovery, children’s well-being, connections to community resources, and resilient responses to the relapses that so often characterize this chronic disease’s course.
Select the Agenda tab above to view the agenda and list of moderators and speakers.
Additional Information
- The summit will take place over Zoom and includes two 30-minute breaks. See the agenda for details!
- All sessions will have live Spanish translation and closed captioning available.
- Certificates of Attendance will be provided.
Cancellation policy: We recognize that the uncertainties of life can sometimes derail our plans. If you feel you need to cancel your registration, we will accept cancellations up to 14 days before the Summit (on or before January 11, 2023). You will be offered a full refund, minus a 10% processing fee.
Support our work: This event is only possible through the generosity of people like you. Please consider making a donation to help BTC continue to offer free and low-cost events to families and family-facing professionals.
Questions? Contact us today!
Thank You to Our 2023 Summit Sponsor
Welcome and Opening
11:00 – 11:30 AM ET / 8:00 – 8:30 AM PT
- Eurnestine Brown, Ph.D., Program Director and Director of Relational Equity and Belonging, Brazelton Touchpoints Center
- Tom Coderre, Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Mental Health and Substance Use, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), U. S. Department of Health & Human Services
- Dara Fruchter, MS, Strategic Initiatives and Special Projects Manager, Child Development Services, Part C, Maine Department of Education
Conversation 1: Preconception and Pregnancy
11:30 AM – 1:00 PM ET / 8:30 – 10:00 AM PT
Moderator:
- Eurnestine Brown, Ph.D., Program Director and Director of Relational Equity and Belonging, Brazelton Touchpoints Center
Panelists:
- Phaedra Moore, BA, Project RESPECT Peer Recovery Specialist, Boston Medical Center
- Christine Perez, Ph.D., RN, National Clinical Improvement Thought Leader NICU, Philips Healthcare
- Mishka Terplan, MD, MPH, Medical Director, and Senior Research Scientist, Friends Research Institute
Break
1:00 – 1:30 PM ET / 10:00 – 10:30 AM PT
Conversation 2: The Newborn
1:30 PM – 3:00 PM ET / 10:30 AM – 12:00 PM PT
Moderator:
- Jayne Singer, Ph.D., IECMH-E®, Director of Developmental and Relational Health, Brazelton Touchpoints Center
Panelists:
- Nneka Hall, Founder, Mother IS Supreme, Inc.; Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Advocate
- Jamie Saunt, MSW, Early Childhood Mental Health Therapist, Ohio Guidestone; Ph.D. candidate, Case Western Reserve University
- Amy Sommer, Clinical Director, Center for Early Relationship Support (CERS®), Jewish Family and Children’s Service of Greater Boston
Break
3:00 – 3:30 PM ET / 12:00 – 12:30 AM PT
Conversation 3: Infants and Toddlers
3:30 PM – 5:00 PM ET /12:30 – 2:00 PM PT
Moderator:
- Joshua Sparrow, MD, Executive Director, Brazelton Touchpoints Center
Panelists:
- Jamie Corbett, MSW, LADC, CCS, Adult Program Manager for Aroostook Mental Health Center for Washington and Hancock County, Maine; advocate, Maine Recovery Advocacy Project
- Heidi Hausler, Parents in Recovery Program Coordinator, Turning Point Center of Chittenden County, Vermont
- Ashlee Loyer, peer recovery coach, parent with lived experience with SUD and recovery
- Ilisa Stalberg, MSS, MLSP, Director of Maternal and Child Health, Vermont Department of Health
Closing
5:00 – 5:30 PM ET / 2:00 – 2:30 PM PT
- Eurnestine Brown, Ph.D., and Jayne Singer, Ph.D., Brazelton Touchpoints Center
2022 SUD Summit
At BTC’s inaugural National Substance Use Disorder Summit, Innovating Partnerships with Families in Recovery, in January 2022, participants engaged in three nationwide conversations on:
- Peer-to-Peer Supports: Recovery coaches with lived experience of SUD, and their parent and professional partners will describe how and why peer-to-peer approaches work, and why they are critical to equitable and inclusive recovery interventions that center family voice, shift power, and build on families’ strengths, resources, and wisdom.
- Comprehensive Systems Approaches: Leaders innovating organizational, community, county, and state-based system changes will share what they are learning about how to strengthen whole communities by assembling, connecting, and coordinating the broad array of sustainable supports, services, and resources for parents in recovery whose disease so often disrupts even basic survival needs.
- Transdisciplinary Collaboration: Frontline providers and parents will distill the key ingredients of effective approaches for building therapeutic relationships based on safety, trust, and hope that promote parents’ motivation for recovery, children’s well-being, and healing, and resilient responses to the relapses and recurrences that characterize this chronic disease’s course.
Download the 2022 Summit Program Guide
Thank You to Our 2022 Summit Sponsor
The Brazelton Touchpoints Center (BTC) held its second National Substance Use Disorder (SUD) Summit, Families in Recovery: The First 1,000 Days – Pregnancy, Newborns, and the First Years, on Wednesday, February 1, 2023.
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