The Touchpoints approach is a strengths-based mindset that family-facing professionals use to engage with families during critical and challenging periods of child and family development. It is a way for professionals to learn the rhythm of the families they are supporting so that we can work alongside them and mirror the families’ own strengths and resources when the family is working through the developmental process.  

Healthy child development occurs best in the context of nurturing and responsive early parent/caregiver relations. Families are facing undeniable stressors and raising children with less  structural and social supports than ever before.  The Touchpoints approach is a strengths-based mindset that family-facing professionals use to engage with families during critical and challenging periods of child and family development.  The Touchpoints approach supports early relational health so that children have a strong foundation for lifelong growth and development.

The Touchpoints approach, developed by pediatrician T. Berry Brazelton, MD, is a way of providing care to families by understanding development and supporting relationships.  Touchpoints are predictable periods in the first years of life, during which spurts in children’s development impact the family system.  Knowledge of these touchpoints, and strategies for dealing with them, can help families anticipate and navigate these periods of change.  Using relationship-based practices with families supports open communication, promotes mutual understanding, and helps build long-term trusting relationships with families that contribute to a family’s well-being. Touchpoints is not an education-based, imparting of wisdom from the “professional” to the family. Rather, it is a way for professionals to humbly learn the rhythm of the families they are supporting so that we can work alongside them and mirror the families’ own strengths and resources when the family is working through the developmental process.  Touchpoints provides strategies to help you through communication and relationship challenges that you may face working with families with young children.  With Touchpoints, these challenges can become opportunities for building trust, and strengthening relationships within families and between you and the family.

Touchpoints supports: 

• optimal child development
• healthy, functional families
• competent and healthy professionals
• strong communities

Touchpoints-informed practice is proven effective in a variety of organizations and settings, including early care and education centers, pediatric healthcare, mental health, early intervention and home visitation, child welfare, public health, institutions of higher learning, and Tribal communities.  

Chloe Leary from the Winston Prouty Center for Child and Family Development in Brattleboro, talks about using Touchpoints as a CIS provider.

What you will learn

• Strategies for building partnerships with parents that promote family strengths
• A framework to understand why children’s behavior can sometimes be challenging and confusing
• Techniques for talking with families about child development concerns
• How to actively listen to families and collaboratively solve problems related to child development and family relationships

Topics covered in the courses include

• Touchpoints of a child’s development
• Being culturally responsive
• Touchpoints principles of relationship-based practice
• Providing anticipatory guidance

Target Audience

• All Touchpoints trainings are open to individuals and teams working in Vermont in early childhood sectors, including early care and education providers, Children’s Integrated Services (CIS) providers, and medical providers, professionals who work with families of young children, including child care educators, family child care providers, home visitors, pediatricians, early intervention educators, and more

Training Modalities

We offer Touchpoints trainings in multiple modalities: virtual, in-person, and hybrid. 

Training Phases

All Touchpoints trainings are a total of 33 hours and include learning and practice phases.

• The learning phase of Touchpoints trainings include synchronous face-to-face learning and independent work done on the participants own time.  While the total time of the learning phase is the same for all trainings 33 hours, the relative time for face-to-face and independent learning activities varies.
• The practice phase of Touchpoints follows the learning phase. Participants will practice applying Touchpoints, reflect on their experience using journal prompts, and meet monthly for an hour of face-to-face time to share their reflections and learnings.

Training Cost

Trainings are a $895 value but are currently free thanks to funding from the Vermont Department of Health Division of Family and Child Health.  Participants must live in Vermont or serve families in Vermont and commit to attending all sessions.   For professionals outside of Vermont interested in Touchpoints trainings, please visit the Brazelton Touchpoints Center. Attendance is required to meet certification requirements. Attendance is expected at all sessions; this includes audio and video access for virtual sessions. Cameras are expected to be on for the full duration of all virtual sessions. Reflective practice is a required part of the training and will be scheduled once a month during the same time as training hours.

Spring 2025: Hybrid Training

• For this training, priority will be given to staff at Monarch Maples Pediatrics and their affiliates.
• Two half-day in-person sessions and nine virtual one-hour sessions.
• Thursdays May-July
• One hour per month live reflective practice sessions via Zoom from September 2025 – February 2026

Fall 2025

• Seven 90-minute live sessions via Zoom
• Wednesdays 12:00-1:30pm on the following dates:
• 9/24, 10/1, 10/8, 10/15, 10/22, 10/29, 11/5
• 3 hours of asynchronous work per week
• One hour per month live reflective practice sessions via Zoom from December 2025 - May 2026.

Registration

Register Now VCHIP is a Northern Lights-approved sponsor and will submit attendance and documentation to BFIS for early childhood education and afterschool providers. 

Schedule a Training

If you would like to schedule a training for your team, please contact:  VCHIP.Touchpoints@med.uvm.edu