Mirror: Creating Reflective Programs
Mentalization-based and attachment-focused interventions like Mothering from the Inside Out (MIO) are strongly supported by research. Yet across real-world settings, many evidence-based models struggle to take root in ways that are sustainable, scalable, and responsive to the realities of clinical practice.
We are therefore working to bridge this science-to-service gap by developing implementation strategies that are not only evidence-informed, but also relational, reflective, and grounded in the lived experience of clinicians and families.
Rather than focusing solely on clinical training, our approach integrates reflective and mentalization-based principles into the process of implementation itself. We explore how clinicians, supervisors, organizations, and systems make meaning of behavior, how they experience uncertainty and complexity, and how relational safety and curiosity can support learning and change.
Through this work, we are iteratively developing and testing whether reflective, mentalization-based implementation strategies can strengthen real-world uptake of reflective parenting supports like Mothering from the Inside Out, deepen clinical impact, and support more equitable and sustainable delivery of care. Our goal is not just to disseminate a model, but to cultivate conditions in which evidence-based, relationship-centered care can truly flourish in everyday practice.
Mirror is an approach to supporting the delivery of treatment/recovery services to parents of young children. Mirror is designed for peer coaches, residential staff, and other treatment/recovery professionals. Mirror takes a whole-team approach to support a variety of relationships across the recovery system— between parent & child, staff & parents, and supervisors & staff.
Grounded in the mentalization-based principles of Mothering from the Inside Out, Mirror helps providers navigate the complex task of supporting parents in recovery by understanding the emotions that drive parenting and substance use behaviors.
The goals of Mirror are to:
Create a reflective culture across your work
Provide a framework based in attachment theory
Equip you with core, non-clinical, evidence-based skills
Apply to how you do the thing you’re already doing
Give practical strategies for building trust with clients who struggle to trust that help can be helpful
Give strategies forself-regulationwhen our own stuff gets brought up by the work
Give strategies for supporting one another as teammates when we are feeling overwhelmed
Build shared framing and language that supports and mirrors relationships and regulation across your team
Want to register for Mirror training?
Early Relationships Across Systems (ERAS) was developed in response to challenges engaging marginalized families in the Early Intervention (EI) system. ERAS blends approaches from MIO, in addition to Arietta Slade’s Relational Foundations of Reflection, and the Anna Freud Centre’s AMBIT model.
Trauma-Informed Early Relationship Support (TIERS) resulted from a collaboration between experts in Trauma-Informed Care (TIC) and Mothering from the Inside Out (MIO) as a way to facilitate patient engagement with doulas among marginalized postpartum mothers at risk for hypertension and depression.