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Our History
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Parent-Child Relationship Programs has a long and rich history in the Infant Mental Health field.
Start of the Journey
Parent-Child Relationship Programs has a long and rich history in the Infant Mental Health field. There are hundreds of studies validating the work of our founder, Dr. Kathryn Barnard. In 1971, Dr. Kathryn Barnard, PhD, RN, FAAN, Professor of Family and Child Nursing at the University of Washington, initiated research that brought the ecology of early child development closer to the level of clinical practice by developing methods for assessing behaviors of children and parents.
Milestone: Introduction of Assessment Tools
She identified environmental factors that are critical to a child’s well-being and demonstrated the importance of parent-child interaction as a predictor of later cognitive and language development. Dr. Barnard was incredibly foresightful. These assessment tools, widely known as the NCAST Feeding and Teaching Parent-Child Interaction scales, were initially taught in 1979 to over 600 nurses in a series of eight classes via satellite in the United States.
Expansion and Global Impact
After the satellite training experiment ended, NCAST (Nursing Child Assessment Satellite Training), under the direction of Georgina Sumner, started offering a Certified Instructor Workshop in Seattle. These professionals gained reliability in the use of the Feeding and Teaching Scales and after obtaining certification as an NCAST Local Instructor went back to their communities to teach others in how to become astute observers of parent-child interaction using the scales.
Parent-Child Relationship Programs is a self-sustaining program in the School of Nursing at the University of Washington.
Parent-Child Relationship Programs was founded in 1976.
The Barnard Center was founded in 2001 by Dr. Kathryn Barnard.
Years in
Business
Participants
Trained in 2023
Events and
Workshops Held
in 2023
Number of
Countries Accessing
our Programs in 2023
Celebrating Our Achievements
Year After Year of Positive ImpactThese numbers don't just represent statistics, but individual stories of change and growth. Explore how we have impacted lives and communities over time.
Our Mission
Our mission is to serve multidisciplinary early childhood professionals, across the globe, by developing and sharing evidence based training programs and tools that are informed by science. Through this work, providers deepen their understanding of relational health to enhance their practice with families and children.
Meet Our Team
Meet the Faces Behind the Mission
Monica Oxford
MSW, PhD
Executive Director of Parent-Child Relationship Programs
Monica Oxford, MSW, PhD, is a Research Professor in Child, Family, and Population Health Nursing at the University of Washington and the Executive Director of the Barnard Center for Infant Mental Health and Development.
Her research focuses on early parenting and child developmental outcomes for vulnerable families living in challenging environments. Dr. Oxford’s interest is in how context, parenting, and child characteristics combine to inform particular patterns of child outcomes and how intervention services promote both caregiver and child well-being. Dr. Oxford is also involved in training social service providers throughout Washington on infant mental health, strengths based practice, and how providers can support caregiver-child dyadic interaction from an attachment based perspective.
Dr. Oxford is the principal investigator of four NIH grants; the first three are randomized control trials aimed at examining the impact of Promoting First Relationships® (PFR: Kelly et al, 2008). PFR is a brief 10-week home visiting program that is a strength and relationship-based video feedback program. These three studies are randomized control trials in three populations: one RCT for parents involved with child protective services, one RCT for reunified birth families, and one RCT for American Indian families in a rural setting. The fourth NIH grant is aimed at addressing the interaction between family, school, child, and contextual risk such as poverty and early child developmental outcomes Dr. Oxford is also co-principal investigator on three NIH funded RCT testing the effectiveness of PFR in three additional populations (foster care, perinatal mental health setting, and American Indian rural setting).
Jennifer Rees
MSW
Program Director
Jennifer directs Promoting First Relationships’ community and distance training programs. She is responsible for curriculum and program development, assuring program fidelity, providing on-site and distance training to community agencies,
facilitating reflective practice groups and managing contracts. Jennifer graduated with honors from the University of Washington with her Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology and later went on to obtain her Master of Social Work degree. She spent the early part of her career working with children and families as a Research Coordinator for the NICHD Study of Early Childcare and Youth Development, as well as counseling teens and their families in school settings.
Her projects with Promoting First Relationships have included training providers working in child welfare, family support, mental health, early intervention, and early childhood education. Jennifer cares deeply about supporting parents in a strengths-based way and helping them have a positive, connected relationship with their child.
Carol Good
MSW, LICSW, IMH-E® Infant
Mental Health Mentor - Clinical
Master Trainer
Carol has a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Carroll College in Helena, MT.
She later received a Masters of Social Work degree from the University of Washington. Her clinical practice started in 1990 working in a residential treatment facility that specialized in working with children that had disrupted attachment relationships. In 1992 she moved to Western Washington and began working in the field of early childhood mental health. Carol has over 27 years’ experience providing infant/early childhood mental health services in both a community mental health setting, and in early intervention services in Washington State.
Her focus of practice has consistently been assisting parents in better understanding their child’s social and emotional needs and the interplay between trauma and attachment relationships. She has been providing supervision and training to practitioners in the field of infant/early childhood mental health since 2001 as well as providing workshops for parents of infants and toddlers. She joined the University of Washington as a Promoting First Relationships (PFR) Master Trainer in 2014. Since that time she has provided workshops and training on a variety of topics including PFR throughout the U.S. and abroad. Carol enjoys dynamic conversation at her presentations and encourages all voices in the room to be heard and engaged.
Kimberlee Shoecraft
LICSW, IMH-E® Infant Mental
Health Mentor - Clinical
Master Trainer
As a Master Trainer at PCRP, Kimberlee enthusiastically trains both the Parent Child Interaction Feeding and Teaching scales and the Promoting First Relationships program. Kimberlee has been providing and training these programs for about 15 years.
Kimberlee began working with the PCI scales and PFR with child welfare involved families in the state of WA and she has provided training in these programs to people all over the world.
Kimberlee is a licensed independent clinical social worker and a certified chemical dependency counselor in Washington State. She completed a Bachelor’s of Science Degree in Sociology at Central Washington University and a Master’s Degree in Social Work at Eastern Washington University. She has spent the last 15 years training social service professionals nationally and internationally in other evidence-based programs, as well as providing clinical supervision and consultation for social service professionals working with children and families. Kimberlee has also worked as a psychiatric social worker in the ER and spent three years working in the Middle East and many African countries developing psychosocial programs primarily for refugee populations.
Maureen Kuo
Maureen is a Chicago native and attended the University of Illinois. She is chuffed to be in Seattle and cares immensely about the parent and child relationship. In her personal time, she enjoys being active, exploring the beautiful Pacific Northwest, reading, crocheting, traveling, and being a dog mom to her mini poodle mix Popcorn.
Nancy Meenen
Manager
Nancy has worked in the education field for over 25 years as well as operated her own business for over 15 years. She manages the day to day operations of PCRP including: marketing and promotional projects, training workshops, the website/store, and student/client liaison.
Nancy grew up in Seattle and attended the University of Washington. In her personal time she enjoys hiking, knitting, and extreme gardening.
The Tenets
Parent-Child Relationship Programs endorses “The Tenets”. The Diversity-Informed Tenets for Work with Infants, Children and Families (Tenets) are a set of guiding principles and practices that strengthen the commitment and capacity of professionals, organizations and systems to embed diversity, inclusion and equity principles into their work with infants, children and families.
The Tenets help programs, organizations and systems of care benchmark their progress in embedding diversity, equity and inclusion into every aspect of individual and organizational practices and policies. They help launch the beginning of an ongoing, always-evolving conversation, about creating a more diverse, inclusive and equitable organization.
Questions?
Please give us a call
We look forward to talking with you!
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Phone
206-543-8528
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Business hours
Monday – Friday
7:30am – 4pm
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E-mail
pcrp@uw.edu
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Mailing Address
Parent-Child Relationship ProgramsUniversity of Washington - Box 357231
Seattle, WA 98195-7231
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Office Address
Parent-Child Relationship ProgramsUniversity of Washington
Health Sciences Building F-346
Seattle, WA 98195-7231
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