Greetings, Jump Start Community!
My name is Tori Graham, and I am a Facilitating Attuned Interactions (FAN) Trainer and Project Manager at Erikson Institute in Chicago. The FAN Approach serves as an internal GPS; a roadmap for engaging with parents. The FAN focuses on parents’ urgent concerns and helps home visitors and clinicians tailor responses to match what parents seem to need most in the moment.
The FAN also helps home visitors and clinicians recognize how their own internal sense of regulation/dysregulation impacts their ability to be fully present with a family. The FAN offers strategies to help home visitors and clinicians feel balanced in activating/high risk situations.
I have the pleasure of facilitating a six-month project to infuse the FAN into home visiting practices at the Joliet and Bradley Jump Start sights. Home visitors that infuse the FAN in practice tend to report decreased feelings of burnout and increased reflective capacity. As a former home visitor within a nonprofit agency, I can empathize with the simultaneous excitement and trepidation that comes with learning and implementing a new home visiting approach. The Jump Start staff have embraced the FAN model with enthusiasm, curiosity, and courage.
The FAN supports Jump Start home visitors by helping them to determine parents’ concerns and needs and intervene empathically. Home visitors using the FAN explore caregiver concerns in a collaborative manner, encouraging caregivers to help set the home visiting agenda and think together about workable solutions. Jump Start home visitors also use the FAN as a guide for giving parents information and resources in digestible, meaningful ways.
It has been a privilege to support the Jump Start team through their journey toward understanding, implementing, and sustaining the FAN in their important home visiting work. I look forward to our ongoing partnership, and learning from the wisdom and experience of Jump Start’s dedicated team.
Tori Graham, MSW, IMH-Certificate
FAN Master Trainer and Project Manager
Fussy Baby Network at Erikson Institute
