For Immediate Release
Contact: Samantha Gray
Telephone: 423-878-8359
Email: samantha at attachmentparenting dot org
Nashville, TN – September 10, 2010 – Attachment Parenting International (API) is pleased to be recognized for its 16 years of grassroots and global work in parenting education and support by Heidi Saban Stills of the Saban Family Foundation. Stills has recognized API with a generous grant to expand API's efforts. This recognition will help API reach more families with the important message of healthy emotional and physical development of children and vital support to parents and caregivers.
"I first came across API during a time of trauma and stress when I had simply run out of any tools that would have helped us get through those dark times," said Stills, Saban Family Foundation Board Trustee. "I found so much from access to this organization and the information it provides to help myself and my family, not to mention anyone who was connected to us to get through a painful experience with the ability to take away a positive lesson."
"The surprise was that beyond the trauma and into everyday life," added Stills, mother of two and doula, "I have come to realize that since I have been incorporating the principles of attachment into my family value system, I have been able to enjoy my role as a mother even more than ever before and my entire family is blossoming and growing stronger every day!"
"I can't say enough about how much impact supporting this organization can make, not only for the present and future families, but for society as a whole. If we can find a way to start a chain reaction in the support of parents to connect over a lifetime with their children, we are working towards building a more confident, balanced, and empathetic society to live in," said Stills.
Stills met with Barbara Nicholson, API cofounder with Lysa Parker, to discuss the tremendous impact made, the continued needs, and the potential of this collaboration. Nicholson expressed that "Heidi shares our vision and understands our approach to bring the long-researched and proven parenting Principles out of research journals and into parents' lives. The support we provide parents helps them embrace their own parenting instincts— which remarkably is what the research has been telling us all along. While it's a long road—as we have lost our bearings with cultural pressures and stresses that keep us from responding to our children with sensitivity and respect, with positive discipline, with assurance and trust—this support helps us reinforce and sustain our efforts. We are pleased to receive this contribution in the midst of our Ripple Effect campaign, as this grant to API affirms the far reaching impact on our world as a result of supporting parents to raise empathic children."
API advocates Attachment Parenting which is based in the practice of nurturing parenting methods that create strong emotional bonds, also known as secure attachment, between children and their parent(s). This core understanding of parenting encourages responsiveness to children's emotional needs, enabling children to develop trust that their needs will be met. As a result, this strong attachment helps children develop the capacity for secure, empathic, peaceful, and enduring relationships that follow them into adulthood.
Attachment Parenting International (API) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit member organization founded in 1994 to network with parents, professionals and like-minded organizations around the world. API's mission is to educate and support all parents in raising secure, joyful and empathic children in order to strengthen families and create a more compassionate world. In addition to providing assistance in forming Attachment Parenting support groups, API functions as a clearinghouse providing educational materials, research information, consultative, referral and speaker services to promote Attachment Parenting concepts.
API board and advisory board members include such noted parenting authors as Dr. William Sears and Martha Sears, R.N., Dr. James McKenna, Lu Hanessian of LetTheBabyDrive.com, author Alice Miller, now deceased, Sir Richard Bowlby, Dr. Elliot Barker, Dr. Jay Gordon, Peggy O'Mara, Dr. Bruce Perry, and others.