Promising Practice

Facilitating Attuned Interactions (FAN) Training


State/Jurisdiction: National
Setting: Clinical
Population: Medical & Public Health Professionals Infant
Topic Area: Workforce Development
NPMs: NA

The Facilitating Attuned Interactions (FAN) intervention aims to enhance the “attunement” between providers and parents and strengthen the provider-parent relationship. FAN’s ultimate goal is strengthening the provider-parent relationship, resulting in parents who are attuned to their children and ready to try new ways of relating to them. The FAN’s underlying assumption is that when the MCH provider-parent relationship is strengthened, so too is the parent-child relationship. This concept of a “parallel process” is central to an infant mental health approach that guides the FAN. The FAN provides not only a conceptual model for increasing the attunement between the provider and the caregiver, but also a practical tool to operationalize attunement for MCH providers across sectors and settings. At the center of the FAN model is the parents’ “concern,” that is: what brought them to seek services from the MCH system. The FAN provides a framework for understanding where a parent is in terms of their readiness to engage in behavior change. The FAN helps providers to match their content and approach to family engagement to the cues that the parent is showing in the moment and adjust and align their approach during the service encounter based on the parent’s responses. When providers are more attuned—or better able to meet the parents where they are—MCH providers become better able to communicate with and support the parent in developing the skills and confidence that they need to care for their child’s health and development.


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Implementation Handout
Handout Resources


CONTACT INFORMATION
Erikson Institute
Tori Graham
TGraham@erikson.edu
(312) 893-7231
Practice Website