University of Miami Program Comes to TML

The scenario is a common one. Mom is in the grocery store line anxious to check out after enduring aisle and after aisle of her young child begging for everything from juice boxes to her favorite cereal. The candy is now the latest in a string of battles and Mom has had enough. If this scenario sends waves of memories I bet you wished you had an expert voice in your ear guiding you through this and other tough parenting situations. For parents in Overtown and West Homestead, that expert guiding voice is now a reality. Touching Miami with Love is excited to be partnering with the University of Miami’s Mailman Center for Child Development in an innovative evidence-based treatment for young children with emotional and behavioral disorders. PCIT stands for Parent-Child Interaction Therapy and improves the quality of the parent-child relationship by changing parent-child interaction patterns.

This parenting education program includes a blend of parent education and parent coaching.  During live interactions with their children, therapists coach from an observation room with a one-way mirror into the playroom, using a “bug-in-the-ear” system for communicating to the parents as they play with their child. Concluding each session, therapist and caregiver together decide which skill to focus on most during daily 5-minute home practice sessions the following week. Substantial research has demonstrated the effectiveness of PCIT for families with children between the ages of 2 and 12. In addition, PCIT has also been shown to work with children with autism spectrum disorders, chronic illnesses, and developmental concerns.

So what does this mean for TML? UM’s PCIT program rents two converted rooms at both TML West Homestead and TML Overtown sites as therapy space in order to provide PCIT services to families in our community. Given the large number of children we serve at our sites and the daily access of parents picking up their children from our programming, we were excited to answer University of Miami’s call for partnership for PCIT. They recognize we are trusted by community members and our programs and services are already regularly accessed by families.

For families being served by TML and UM PCIT, the PCIT therapists provide after-school behavioral consultation to TML when children or youth are exhibiting significant behavior difficulties that may be impacting their ability to learn or perform academically. Additionally impactful for our children, when TML students in our year-round out of school program are exhibiting disruptive and/or aggressive behaviors or are at-risk for child maltreatment, our staff are able to provide a warm hand-off linkage approach to the PCIT therapist on site. The PCIT therapist then discusses services with the family and initiates the treatment engagement process.

Therapy sessions like these would usually cost families thousands of dollars, but through this unique partnership and the funding support of The Children’s Trust our communities’ parents have free access to this most advanced intervention for parents. View a video of what an example of PCIT with UM looks like HERE.

UM Therapist at our Overtown site coaches a parent as they interact with their child.