The Willow Collective, BHS Impact Fund Grantee, focuses on healing relationships as a way to support young children

The Willow Collective, a practice focused on infant, early childhood, and maternal mental health, provides support for young children and their families with a history of trauma.

The founders of The Willow Collective identified a need for therapeutic support for young children and their caregivers, especially when a parent is struggling with substance use, mental health, generations of poverty and violence, or criminal justice involvement. The organization is named for the willow tree because it can bend without breaking and is a beautiful symbol of resilience.

The organization aims to be a hub where families can access resources and connect to mental health services while building a network of providers to help meet the needs of families and coordinate care for families navigating the perinatal and early childhood life stages.

Research shows that intervening early in a child’s life has long-term positive benefits for the child, family members, and ultimately the community at large. Additionally, the impacts of early interventions continue into later childhood, and adulthood, and even into their own parenting experiences.

According to Mary Beth Swanson, co-founder of The Willow Collective, the goal is to “keep relationships at the center of everything. We are organized around relationships, starting with the relationship between a young child and their caregiver. Sometimes the caregiver is a grandparent, aunt, uncle,  foster parent or another family member. No matter what, we're trying to figure out a way to make sure that the littlest humans in our community have at least one safe relationship that they can grow up with. And so, that means that we're doing a lot of healing with caregivers.”

To help accomplish this, therapists engage in dyactic work which involves working with two generations at the same time.“You're not treating this person or this person, but you're treating the relationship between them,“ observes Swanson.

Swanson also pointed out that Covid led to a great deal of isolation for young children and was an incredibly challenging time for young families that were already struggling to navigate difficult circumstances.  Therapists encountered young children that had never been around another child and needed to work through a lot of separation anxiety and learn to interact with other kids.

The Willow Collective received funding from the Behavioral Health Services Impact Fund Grant Program to help establish three group programs, each with a unique objective:

• Nurturing Connections NoCo - Addresses postpartum mental health challenges.     Moms who are struggling with postpartum mood disorder bring their babies to the Willow Collective. For the first hour, moms meet with licensed therapists to work on an intensive curriculum of support while Willow Collective staff and interns care for the babies. During the second hour, moms and babies reunite and are supported as they explore a sense of joy and playfulness, something that is often difficult while in the grips of depression and anxiety. 
   
• Roots and Branches - Builds community among parents of young children. This is a drop in play group in which parents meet together to talk about typical and atypical developmental and parenting stressors while their children work with Willow Collective therapists and interns. The “drop in” nature ensures that payment is never a barrier and that parents have the freedom to join when their schedules allow. As hoped, parents continue to support one another outside of the Willow Collective as friendships grow. 
   
• Circle of Security - Promotes secure parent-child attachment. The Circle of Security Parenting model is based on the belief that children thrive when they have at least one secure relationship with a caregiver. For parents who have not necessarily experienced that themselves as children, the curriculum allows them to explore and build their capacity to provide a secure base for their young children. The group is now being offered at Community Corrections as well as both online and in person. 

“We believe that people heal within relationships and that it’s ok if that relationship is with the therapist for a little while if it so happens that you don’t have another safe holding space in your life,” says Swanson.

To learn more about the maternal, infant, and early childhood mental health programs available through The Willow Collective, please visit  https://www.willowcollectivefoco.com/