What is Let’s Connect®?

Let’s Connect® (LC) is a trauma-responsive parenting program that teaches caregivers to identify and respond to children’s emotional needs and behaviors in a way that builds connection and warmth and promotes children’s emotional competence, sense of emotional security, and well-being. Let’s Connect® does this in four primary ways:

Provides caregiver education about resilience, social and emotional development, family emotional climate, children’s behavioral challenges, and other topics specific to each family, including child trauma.
Builds caregivers own social and emotional skills and well-being, including caregiver self-awareness, perspective taking, emotional regulation, and supportive presence.
Supports caregivers in developing intentional environments that integrate rituals, routines, and daily rhythms into the home to promote predictability, consistency, and opportunities for connection.
Teaches caregivers specific skills for interacting with their child in a way that promotes supportive relationship quality, child social and emotional competence, and children’s mental/behavioral health and well-being.

Let’s Connect® skills are grounded in developmental and clinical research. Research shows that caregiver response to child emotion is central to fostering children’s social and emotional competence (e.g., emotion regulation), emotional security, mental/behavioral/physical health, and overall resilience. LC offers individualized training, skills modeling, and live support for skills practice for caregivers of children and youth (ages 3-15) over approximately 12-16 sessions. LC can be implemented in-person or virtually.

Families gain specific tools for addressing behavioral challenges, understanding their youth’s underlying needs, and talking about important, and sometimes difficult family topics, including family transitions, divorce, separation, illness, trauma, grief and loss.

Let’s Connect® can be delivered as a stand-alone parenting prevention program for any family as well as for families who have experienced significant adverse life events, trauma, or other challenges. Let’s Connect® can also be used as a ‘strategic enhancement’ to evidence-based child and family interventions, such as Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Let’s Connect® has been designated as a promising practice by the National Child Traumatic Stress Network. For more information, please visit: letsconnect.org

LC skills include:

Noticing and Appreciating
Listening to Learn more
Labeling and Focusing on Feelings
Emotion Support/Validation skills
Emotion Coaching skills
Strategies for reducing behavioral challenges

LC skills are taught to parents/caregivers using a variety of methods:

direct instruction and discussion
role play
live, guided skills practice
reflection
guided mindfulness & self-care practices

Let’s Connect® developers and trainers have experience delivering Let’s Connect® to hundreds of families and supporting communities with cultural adaptations nationally and internationally. LC is currently being delivered in Singapore and Japan and LC is being evaluated for use in Japanese child foster care settings. The Let's Connect® team is committed to continually learning how to improve feasibility, relevance and cultural responsiveness of the program, through collaboration with families and community providers. During Let's Connect® four-day virtual training, attendees will:

Learn how to implement Let’s Connect® with individual families
Practice Let’s Connect® skills through role-play/vignettes
Receive coaching and feedback on use of Let’s Connect® Skills by trainers/consultant.
Learn how to track parents’ skill acquisition and use
Gain access to clinician tools and family materials
Be eligible for the optional LC group delivery training

Training will be highly interactive with case examples, self-reflection and active skills practice.

Training Schedule:

Dates: January 10th, 11th, and 12th, 2024

Time: 8:30am-2:00pm MST

Please adjust for your time zone accordingly.

Ongoing Web-Based Consultation

Web-based consultation is available for applying LC with your child/family cases following the in-person training for 4 months (a total of 6 hours). Consultation meetings are 60-minutes in duration and held over Zoom conferencing. Groups have approximately 8-10 clinicians.

Calls are 2x monthly for the first 2 months
Calls are 1x monthly for the next 2 months

Additional details regarding consultation will be provided during training.

Cost: $750 per participant, includes:

16 hours of live virtual training
6 hours of follow-up web-based case consultation
Materials and resources

Contact Information: For any questions, concerns, or refund requests, please email Natalie Blunt at Natalie.blunt@colorado.edu

Trainer Biographies

Let's Connect® Trainers 

Kimberly Shipman, Ph.D.

Dr. Kimberly Shipman is a Senior Research Associate at the Institute of Behavioral Science (IBS) at the University of Colorado at Boulder and is a licensed psychologist (clinical and developmental) with considerable expertise in emotion socialization, children’s social and emotional development, child mental health and child trauma as well as in the development and dissemination of evidence-based prevention and intervention programs for children and families. Based on her research in social and emotional development, she has co-developed Let’s Connect®, an innovative emotion-focused parenting program. She has also co-developed Resilience in Schools and Educators (RISE) which is a whole school, resilience and trauma-informed social and emotional learning program. Her current research focuses on implementation and evaluation of Let’s Connect® in collaboration with several community partners locally and throughout Colorado. Dr. Shipman has extensive experience leading federal and state grants and contracts, provides considerable training in evidence-based prevention services and mental health treatment, and is certified to train nationally in Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) in addition to Let’s Connect® and RISE.

Monica Fitzgerald, Ph.D.

Dr. Monica Fitzgerald is a licensed clinical psychologist and Senior Research Associate at the University of Colorado Boulder. She directs the Center for Resilience + Well-Being within the Institute of Behavioral Science. Dr. Fitzgerald has deep expertise in childhood trauma and resilience, social emotional development, family communication and parenting. She has extensive experience with community dissemination of evidence-based, trauma-focused interventions for youth and families and implementation science. She and her CRW team also focus on expanding prevention services for youth and families, through developing and evaluating trauma responsive prevention programs that build strong adult-youth relationships and safe, supportive environments in families and schools. Dr. Fitzgerald is a co-developer of Let’s Connect® and Resilience in Schools & Educators (RISE), and a certified trainer and consultant in the trauma focused family interventions AF-CBT and TF-CBT. She enjoys training and consulting nationally and internationally and learning with communities applying cultural adaptations. She is committed to living trauma-informed anti-racist principles, actions and restorative practices.

Dr. Fitzgerald obtained her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at the University of Georgia and completed a clinical internship and NIMH Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Child Traumatic Stress studies from the National Crime Victims Research Treatment Center at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, SC. She has published numerous articles and chapters. Dr. Fitzgerald loves being a parent of three and enjoys rock climbing, mountain biking, skiing, and tending to her orchids at home in Boulder, Colorado.

Marcela Torres Pauletic, Ph.D.

Dr. Marcela Torres Pauletic is a licensed clinical psychologist and Senior Research Associate at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Institute of Behavioral Science, Center for Resilience and Well-Being.. Her areas of expertise include child social emotional development, childhood trauma and resilience, and the protective role of relationships throughout childhood. She is involved in intervention and prevention program development, evaluation and dissemination. Dr. Torres Pauletic provides training and consultation to mental health professionals and family providers in evidence-based treatments for children and families experiencing trauma, including Trauma-Focused Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) and Let’s Connect®. She holds a B.S. in Human Development from Cornell University, and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology (Child and Family Specialization) from The Pennsylvania State University. She completed her clinical internship and postdoctoral fellowship at the Yale University Child Study Center.

Jessica Gorrono, LCSW

Jessica Gorrono is a licensed clinical social worker and the Director of Digital Initiatives for the Center of Resilience and Well-Being at the University of Colorado Boulder. Ms. Gorrono’s career has focused on 1) providing evidence based treatments to trauma-exposed youth and families 2) developing and managing teams, systems and processes across sectors to improve outcomes for youth and families 3) providing training and consultation on evidence based and informed treatments and mental and behavioral health systems and processes to professionals in various roles within and across youth-serving systems 4) collaborating deeply in the development of structures, processes and pathways in teams that facilitate meaningful growth, innovation, engagement and equity. Her experience includes various roles in every major youth and family serving system, including child-welfare, education and community mental health. She is a trainer and consultant for Let’s Connect® and RISE: Resilience In Schools and Educators as well as national consultant for Trauma Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.