Social workers and Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health (IECMH) helpers need practical, relationship-based clinical tools to support families experiencing stress, separation, and loss. Research reveals key parenting behaviors occur during hair combing interaction (HCI) ¿ lively verbal interaction, sensitive touch, and responsiveness to infant cues. This book explores how the simple routine of combing hair serves as an emotionally powerful, trauma-informed, culturally valid therapeutic tool for use by mental health helpers.HCI offers a low-cost opportunity for IECMH helpers to engage families and sustain attachment relationships. In this book, case studies illustrate the use of HCI with diverse families of color. Each chapter includes questions for reflective supervision to understand sociocultural factors that may shape behaviors during HCI. Topics included in the text:The Observing Professional and the Parent¿s EthnobiographyIntroduction to Reflective Supervision: Through the Lens of Culture, Diversity, Equity, and InclusionA Case Study in Cross-Racial Practice and Supervision: Reflections in Black and WhiteTools to Disrupt Legacies of Colorism: Perceptions, Emotions, and Stories of Childhood Racial FeaturesTherapeutic Cultural Routines to Build Family Relationships: Talk, Touch & Listen While Combing Hair© is a unique resource for counselors, psychologists, psychiatrists, home visiting nurses, early childhood educators, and family therapists who work with military families or multiracial families with bi-racial children.¿This book provides practical insights useful for professionals and parents. The authors share compelling experiences using strength-based and rich cultural approaches guided by reflective practice. It deserves to be widely read and become a classic resource.¿Robert N. Emde, Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry, University of Colorado School of Medicine

Discusses how to use hair combing routines to structure Video Interaction Guidance interventions

PART I: Talk, Touch & Listen While Combing Hair- Chapter1. Childhood Experiences of Racial Acceptance and Rejection.- Chapter2. A Social Worker's Story: How Can I Help This Young Mother and Her Little Children?.- Chapter3. The Interactive Stages of Hair Combing: Routines and Rituals.- Chapter4. The Observing Professional and the Parent's Ethnobiography.- Chapter5. Cultural Routines and Reflections: Building Parent-Child Connections - Hair Combing Interaction as a Cultural Intervention.- PART II: Reflective Supervision and Practice: Experiences Shared by Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Practitioners.- Chapter6. Introduction to Reflective Supervision: Through the Lens of Culture, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.- Chapter7. Summoning Angels in the Nursery with Hair Combing Interactions.- Chapter8. The Tilted Room of Colorism.- Chapter9. Infant Mental Health Practice and ReflectiveSupervision: Who We Are Matters.- Chapter 10. 10. A Case Study in Cross-Racial Practice and Supervision: Reflections in Black and White.- PART III: Reflections on Community-Based Interventions.- Chapter 11. If Her Hair Isn't Right, then I'm Not a Good Mother: Reflections on the San Diego Caregiver-Child Connections Community Counseling Project.- Chapter 12. Reflections on the Talk, Touch & Listen Facilitator Learning Community: Braiding the Personal, the Professional, and Liberation.- Chapter 13. PsychoHairapy Through Beauticians and Barbershops: The Healing Relational Triad of Black Hair Care Professionals, Mothers, and Daughters.- Chapter 14. Reflections on Experiences in a Community-Based Parent Support Group: Parent Whisperers.- Chapter 15. Culture, Creativity, and Helping: Using the Afrocentric Perspective in Community Healing.- PART IV: Tools for Observation, Assessment, and Intervention.- Chapter 16. Tools to Disrupt Legacies of Colorism: Perceptions, Emotions, and Stories of Childhood Racial Features.- Chapter 17. Guidelines to Identify Child-Endangering Hair Styling Practices: Medical, Legal, and Psychosocial Perspectives.- Chapter 18. Conclusions.