By Samantha Young, California Healthline, July 7, 2021
When a parent takes an infant to the Children’s Health Center in San Francisco for a routine checkup, a pediatrician will check the baby’s vitals and ask how the child is doing at home.
Then Janelle Bercun, a licensed clinical social worker, who is also in the room, will look at Mom or Dad and pipe up: What is this like for you? Your frustrations? Joys? Challenges? And she stays to work with the parent long after the pediatrician has left.
The facility’s team-based treatment is a pilot project, funded by philanthropies. Yet the approach, which California may soon incorporate on a large scale, could hold the key to fostering a healthy home environment where children thrive, child development experts say. Incorporating therapy for the parents, they say, can lower a child’s risk of future mental disorders stemming from family trauma and adversity.
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