As I’ve been working with Muse Storytelling, a new marketing partner of mine, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about why I do this work and where it actually began.

If you’ve been to one of my trainings, you know the origin story has a couple of parts.

Part of it comes from the work I did for over two decades with children who had experienced significant trauma. The work was rooted in wanting them to feel less alone and for the adults in their lives to better understand how trauma effects their every day behavior. Like many professionals looking for a bigger reach, when I had the opportunity to train other professionals, I was excited. A group of pediatricians asked me to build a curriculum they could use during pediatric visits. I gave them interventions for strengthening relational health, tools for buffering the trauma and adversity so many children and families face.

Those two worlds, my years with children carrying trauma and a curriculum built with intention for professionals working under real time constraints, became the origin of this work. The goal was simple: put interventions in the hands of the professionals on the front lines. I couldn’t reach every child who’d experienced trauma or every family facing adversity, but I could coach the people who were reaching them every day.

Working alongside a marketing team with real storytelling skill has brought me back to this truth over and over: the most important part of this work is connection.

When a professional connects with a child or a family, in a moment shaped by intention rather than urgency, that connection changes something in that person’s life. In an epidemic of loneliness, in a world of screens and rushed schedules and adversity we may never see, connection is the building block for healing our society.

What I want every professional to know is this: you can do this work. You already are doing this work.

Yes, we offer tools. We offer evidence-informed interventions. We build confidence and competence. But at its core, this work is about elevating what these professionals already know to be true, that the relationship they build with the children and families in their care is what makes the difference.

They are the intervention. The relationship is the intervention.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading a few of these stories over the past couple of weeks, glimpses of the lives our work touches. And if you’ve been considering certification in Frontline Relational Health, and Becoming a Connected Champion, I’d love for you to join us at the start of November. It will be transformative.