The Connecting Principal asserts that the caregiver must first be mindful about themselves and what they bring to the interactions with their child. Any unresolved issues or triggers the caregiver might have could get in the way of them connecting with their child. Engagement strategies like nurturing touch, voice quality, and warm eyes allow the caregiver to connect with their child and build trust in an easy and casual way. The Connecting Principal also teaches the caregiver how to share power with the child, so that the child feels that they have a voice in the relationship. This could be in the form of finding ways to say “yes” to their child, giving their child a choice or a compromise, or teaching the child life value terms that help them practice social skills.

The Empowering Principle focuses on meeting the child’s basic needs for food and hydration, as well as meeting their sensory needs, to help the child regulate and to create an ideal environment for connecting and learning. The Empowering Principle also asserts that daily routines, rituals, and preparation for transitions are important to a child’s overall ability to regulate, as well as to build trust and connection with their caregiver.

TBRI is not by itself the only model we use when interacting with our kids, though. All SJRC staff and foster parents are also trained in Satori Alternatives to Aggression (SAMA). SAMA is meant to be used in conjunction with TBRI, specifically for when a child is severely dysregulated and needs help regulating themselves. 75% of SAMA teaches de-escalation techniques, and the remaining 25% teaches containments and other defensive maneuvers should a child act out aggressively. The goal of TBRI is to connect with a child and build trust so that incidents of verbal and physical aggression naturally decrease over time. SAMA is essentially a “back-up” for when the child has moments of verbal and physical aggression that cannot be addressed with TBRI techniques alone. Combined, these two curriculums help set our staff and foster parents up for success when working with children who come from a background of extreme trauma.