Listening for the Circle: Using Circle Stories as Windows into Relationship
For COS professionals, Circle stories are some of the richest data COS professionals have. Within them, we can hear how caregivers are experiencing themselves and their child on the Circle, where Shark Music is playing, and how they are making sense of their child's needs.
Join Brooke Poulsen, clinical psychologist, COSP Facilitator and COS Classroom Coach, as she examines Circle Stories and explores how small provider moves can deepen reflection, track change, and strengthen relationship capacities.
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COSP Facilitator Training
Trainers
Brooke Poulsen
Description
Details
Description
For COS professionals, Circle stories are some of the richest data we have. Within them, we can hear how caregivers are experiencing themselves and their child on the Circle, where Shark Music is playing, how they are making sense of their child's needs, and whether the model is becoming integrated or remains conceptual. Stories reveal coherence in development, and the places it is still, or not yet landing.
We will examine anonymized composite examples of Circle Stories and consider how small provider moves can deepen reflection, increase curiosity, and strengthen relationship capacities. We will explore how stories can become both intervention and assessment, helping us track change not just in behavior, but in how caregivers think and feel about their child.
Details
COS Parenting Facilitator, COS Classroom Coach
- Mental Health Providers (Psychology, Social Work, Marriage and Family Therapists, etc)
- Family Support Workers (Parenting Education, Outreach Workers, Foster Care Support, etc)
- Healthcare Providers (Pediatricians, Nurses, Doulas, OTs, PTs, etc)
- Early Care Professionals
- Use Circle Stories to strengthen a caregiver's capacity to observe their child's behavior, recognize their needs and feelings, and reflect on their own caregiving strengths and struggles.
- Track changes in caregiver narrative to guide facilitation, deepen and expand reflection and support change across the course of the program.
COS Workshops create live, learning experiences for professionals utilizing the COS framework with caregivers to deepen understanding of attachment theory and practice.
Benefits for Professionals:
- Recognize how their own Shark Music™ can drive a premature move toward reassurance, advice, or problem-solving when sitting with a parent’s trauma story or ongoing suffering.
- Distinguish between three facilitative responses, empathy, exploration, and resourcing, and recognize conditions that call for each.
- Apply the diving board framework as a reflective tool for making intentional choice points during COSP engagement.
- 75-min of learning with live trainer (synchronous) followed by 15 min Q&A
- Continuing Education Credit (.1 IACET CEUs/1 contact hour)
