Becoming Healers for Our Children
- Posted on 9 April 09 by Michael Monroe
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The greatest joy in being involved in adoption and foster care ministry is seeing God at work to redeem and restore the broken lives and futures of so many children. But one of the many wonderful side benefits is the people you encounter along the way. None stand out more than Karyn Purvis.
Dr. Purvis has been nothing less than an answer to prayer for many adoptive and foster parents. Her ground-breaking insights and tools have helped countless adoptive and foster parents understand how to better connect with their children in order to help them experience the hope and healing they need.
As the Director of the Institute of Child Development at Texas Christian Universty, Dr. Purvis and her colleague, Dr. David Cross, have been working for over 10 years to develop research-based approaches focused on helping “children from hard places.” This work has focused almost exclusively on adopted and foster childen. The trust-based relational parenting model that resulted from their researh, camps and in-home trainings is thoroughly explained and illustrated in their book, The Connected Child.
Dr. Purvis is also very familiar to those involved in the DFW Alliance. For example, she was a presenter at the most recent Tapestry Adoption & Foster Care Conferences. In addition, many local church adoption and foster care ministries across the country have welcomed and embraced her approach to parenting.
Many more resources from Dr. Purvis will be available for families and church minsitries in the coming months, but for now you can find a great collection of articles, an excerpt from her book, and even audio and video recordings from past presentations all on the Tapestry website here. In fact, we have included one of these past presentations (from the 2007 Tapestry Conference) below for you to watch, learn and be encouraged.
What is That in Your Hand? – Dr. Karyn Purvis from Tapestry on Vimeo.
Watch this presentation by Dr. Karyn Purvis at the 2007 Tapestry Adoption & Foster Care Conference at Irving Bible Church in November 2007. In this presentation she challenges adoptive and foster parents to seek out and take advantage of the resources and support available to them in order to help their children experience the hope and healing they need.
