Thrive Center for Children, Families, and Communities

09/03/2026

Tribal Head Start leaders told Special Olympics they would not take a program built somewhere else and handed over. So Rebecca Ralston’s team spent multiple years co-building an indigenized Young Athletes around tribal languages, games, and activities.

Instead of building foundational motor skills toward soccer, they build toward the tribal game.

Watch or listen to the latest episode of Thrive Together with Maya Smith and Jason Lehmbeck. Link in the comments!

09/02/2026

Last week in Quito, Ecuador, our own Neal Horen took the stage twice at MET 2026 (Mental Health and Education Training), an intensive program for educators, psychologists, and mental health professionals bringing emotional education and evidence-based practice into their classrooms and support settings. The event was hosted by Pyramid Model Ecuador.

Neal opened the training with his keynote, "Childhoods That Leave a Mark: What the Brain Never Forgets — The Developing Mind, Neuroscience, and the Impact of Trauma in Early Childhood," exploring why mental health is the cornerstone of development, learning, relationships, and lifelong well-being. Drawing on developmental neuroscience, he walked through how early experience shapes brain architecture, attachment, emotional regulation, memory, the stress response, and neuroplasticity.

His second keynote turned the focus from the child's brain to the adult's response. Behavior frequently read as defiance, noncompliance, or a lack of motivation is often communication — a reflection of lived experience, unmet needs, and survival responses.

Congratulations, Neal, and thank you to Pyramid Model Ecuador!

08/27/2026

A family gets a diagnosis for a two-year-old, and then they get a list. “Here’s the list of 300 things you need to start thinking about right now,” as Rebecca Ralston of Special Olympics describes it. Much of it sits behind a waiting list.

She wants one item available tonight: “take a breath, we’re just going to play at home together.”

The Young Athletes app suggests activities based on where a child is developmentally, not where a chart says they should be.

🔗 Watch or listen to this week’s video episode of Thrive Together with Maya Smith and Jason Lehmbeck. Link in the comments!

08/27/2026

📢 Calling all early childhood advocates and champions! We invite you to complete Nurture Connection’s annual survey, which will help shape the direction of future efforts to advance Early Relational Health. The survey takes about 9 minutes to complete, and your progress will be saved if you need to pause.

Please complete by *𝗢𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝟱𝘁𝗵*, and feel free to share this survey with your network and partners to help reach as many ERH champions as possible. We appreciate your time and all you do to support children and families!

⬇️Link to the survey in the comments!

08/26/2026

Congratulations to Thrive Center team member Kim Bullock on her contribution to 𝘈𝘯𝘴𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘏𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘦𝘳'𝘴 𝘊𝘢𝘭𝘭, a new book by John DiBello and Abigail Escobar!

The book explores the intersection of faith and medicine, with a focus on educating medical students, community engagement, and the spirit of service to others. The book was recently provided to all first-year medical students at the Georgetown University School of Medicine White Coat Ceremony.

Dr. Bullock's chapter "Contemplation in Action" reflects on the deeper dimensions of becoming a physician, and the ways faith, service, and medicine can intersect throughout that journey.

Our thanks to John DiBello and Abigail Escobar for building a resource that asks the next generation of physicians to consider not only how they practice, but why.

⬇️ Find a link to the book in the comments!

08/25/2026

🚨 Last call -- applications for the Leadership Certificate in IECMHC close September 1, 2026!

This is the program for the leaders who build infant and early childhood mental health consultation systems -- the program directors, policymakers, agency leaders, evaluators, and experienced consultants who make the work possible.

💡$6,000 tuition
📅 9 months
💻 Virtual format

⬇️ Apply by September 1st! Link to website and application in the comments!

Looking for the Practical Certificate in IECMHC? Find the link in the comments!

08/21/2026

📢 Big news from the Georgetown University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities! We are so excited about the launch of the Health and Nutrition Initiative, a new program that brings Georgetown undergraduate and medical students together with DC families, including those raising children with disabilities, in historically underserved communities.

Developed in partnership with the National Children's Center (NCC) Early Learning and Early Intervention Center and led by Dr. Kim Bullock, this initiative is all about reciprocal learning: families build nutritional know-how, discover how to give their favorite traditional recipes a healthy twist, and gain practical strategies for raising healthier eaters. Meanwhile, our future physicians get real-world experience in what person-centered care truly looks like.

This is what happens when a university and its community roll up their sleeves together. Stay tuned for more updates as this exciting work grows!

⬇️ Find more information about the NCC in the comments!

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08/20/2026

🎉 Good news for military families! The application deadline for the Project COMPASS Peer Support Navigator Certificate Program has been extended!

You now have until August 31, 2026 to apply for this 12-session course that prepares military parents to serve as Peer Support Navigators for other families raising a child with mental, emotional, developmental, and/or behavioral needs.

If you have been thinking about it, this is your window! No one understands this journey like someone who has walked it!

Applications now close August 31, 2026.

⬇️ Application link in the comments!

08/19/2026

Community voting for SXSW EDU 2027 is open through August 23 and we'd love your help getting this session on the stage!

"Raising Humans in the Age of AI" will feature Thrive Center Director Dr. Matthew Biel, who will be joining Lisa Guernsey, Philip Steigman, and Joe Waters. Together they'll dig into what young people actually need to flourish in an AI-powered world, and pressure-test a Developmental Bill of Rights for the AI Era.

If this is a conversation you want to see in Austin, it takes just a few seconds to click the heart.

🔗Voting link:

PanelPicker® is the official SXSW user-generated session proposal platform. Enter ideas and vote to help shape Conference programming for SXSW and SXSW EDU.

08/18/2026

📢 New from the Thrive Center! A brief on what the Administration's proposed Head Start rule would mean for the mental health of infants, toddlers, and the adults who care for them.

Head Start reaches more than 700,000 children each year, and what those children and families receive is defined by the Head Start Program Performance Standards: mental health consultation, screening with required follow-up, home visiting, family partnership services, and staff-to-child ratios that allow educators to attend to individual children. The proposed rule would rescind those standards and replace them with a substantially shorter set that defers to state and local requirements.

Our brief examines the proposed changes provision by provision, what the Head Start Act requires, and what the research shows about each intervention.

🚨 Public comments are due October 6, 2026! We encourage everyone who cares about the wellbeing of young children to submit one. 🚨

⬇️ Links to the brief and the website to comment below!