Introducing Your Local Touchpoints Training Team

L-R: Kathy Philyaw, Barbara Crosby, Pamela Marcum, Dr. T. Brazelton

Kathy Talbert-Philyaw is the owner of Little Cougar, Inc. Early Care and Education in China Spring. She has served her community for the past 15 years, providing child care and employment opportunities. Kathy serves on the Child Care Services Advisory Board for Workforce Solutions and participates as an advocate for quality care with her colleagues and fellow directors. “As a member of the Touchpoints Training Team, I have been inspired and challenged to create a network of caregivers and providers of social services that are equipped with the Touchpoints Approach. I am honored to be a part of a system that is working to enrich the lives of families and to strengthen existing relationships.”

Barbara Crosby has spent the last 30 years working with children and families in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, earning her MS in Child Development and Family Studies from the University of Southern Mississippi, and EdS in Leadership Administration from Mississippi College. She is the director of the Piper Center for Family Studies and Child Development at Baylor University and teaches part time in the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences, Child and Family Studies. Barbara has served locally on the EOAC Headstart Advisory Board and Workforce Solutions Child Care Services Advisory Board. Barbara supports Touchpoints as a way to support families in our community.

Pamela Marcum is a licensed clinical social worker in the state of Texas and has a private practice in the field of psychotherapy. Her work experience is extensive, ranging from a case worker at Big Brothers/Big Sisters in Austin, to her current position as Director of Early Childhood Intervention at Klaras Children’s Center ECI. “I am very excited about being on the team of Touchpoints trainers. It’s family centered message and strengths based philosophy match well with the ECI model of service delivery. I look forward to sharing this approach with other providers in our community so that we all can support families as they go about this most important task of caring for young children,” said Pamela Marcum.

Dr. T Berry Brazelton, originally from Waco, is the founder and mentor of the Touchpoints Approach to strengthening parent-child relationships. He graduated in 1943 from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City and accepted a medical internship there. In 1945 he moved to Boston to serve his medical residency at Massachusetts General Hospital before undertaking pediatric training at Children's Hospital. His interest in child development led to training in child psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital and the James Jackson Putnam Children's Center. He subsequently served as a Fellow with Professor Jerome Bruner at the Center for Cognitive Studies at Harvard University. There, the process of integrating his dual interests - primary care pediatrics and child psychiatry - culminated in 1972 when he established the Child Development Unit, a pediatric training and research center, at Children's Hospital.

One of Dr. Brazelton's foremost achievements in pediatrics is the Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (NBAS), published in 1973 and revised in 1984 and in 1995. Known as "the Brazelton," this evaluation tool is used worldwide, clinically and in research, to assess not only the physical and neurological responses of newborns but also their emotional well-being and individual differences. Increasingly, the NBAS is being used as an intervention to help parents understand and relate to their new babies, and new research is underway to study how it can be used to enhance early discharge from the newborn hospital.

Since 1988, Dr. Brazelton has held appointments as Clinical Professor of Pediatrics Emeritus at Harvard Medical School, where he still teaches and conducts research, and Professor of Psychiatry and Human Development at Brown University. In 1995, Harvard University Medical School established the T. Berry Brazelton Chair in Pediatrics. Dr. Brazelton is actively involved with The Brazelton Touchpoints; a preventive outreach program which trains professionals nationwide to better serve families of infants and toddlers. He is also on the faculty of the Brazelton Institute; where he continues to be involved in teaching and research with the Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale.