If you’re raising a child who’s come from a hard place — early trauma, neglect, multiple placements, or the uncertainty of foster care and adoption — you already know that love alone doesn’t always undo what happened before you. Trust-Based Relational Intervention (TBRI) gives your whole family a research-backed, relationship-centered path toward healing, helping your child learn to feel safe, trust again, and build the secure connections every child needs to thrive. You don’t have to have all the answers to start; you just have to be willing to take the next step, and we’ll walk it with you.
What is Trust-Based Relational Intervention (TBRI)?
TBRI is a trauma-informed, evidence-based approach developed by Dr. Karyn Purvis and her colleagues at TCU’s Karyn Purvis Institute of Child Development. It was created specifically for children from “hard places” — kids whose early experiences of trauma, abuse, neglect, or repeated separation from caregivers have made it difficult for them to trust the adults around them, even the ones who love them most.
Rather than treating a child’s most difficult behaviors as something to simply manage or correct, TBRI looks underneath them — to the fear, unmet needs, or dysregulation that’s usually driving them. It’s built on three interconnected sets of principles:
- Empowering Principles — meeting a child’s physical and sensory needs (things like nutrition, sleep, and routine) so their body and brain have what they need to feel safe.
- Connecting Principles — building trust through attuned, responsive relationship, which is the foundation everything else is built on.
- Correcting Principles — responding to hard behavior in ways that teach and disarm fear, rather than punish it.
Together, these principles give parents and caregivers practical, compassionate tools for helping a child move from a place of fear and self-protection toward genuine trust and connection — rooted in both solid research and a heart for healing.
TBRI often pairs naturally with our Play Therapy and Family Counseling services, giving your child a well-rounded, whole-family approach to healing.
Who is it for?
- Children who have experienced early trauma, neglect, or abuse — including experiences before a family ever met them.
- Adoptive and foster families — working to build secure attachment with a child who’s still learning that this home is safe.
- Parents navigating big behavioral challenges at home — defiance, meltdowns, aggression, or shutting down, especially when other approaches haven’t helped.
- Children in transition or with developmental delays — tied to adverse early experiences, multiple placements, or inconsistent early care.
- Kinship caregivers and grandparents raising grandchildren — who need support navigating a child’s trauma history.
- Families seeking a whole-family, relational approach to healing — not just a set of behavior-management techniques.
Benefits of Redeemed Life TBRI
- Builds Secure Attachment — Helps children develop the trust and felt safety needed to form healthy, lasting bonds with caregivers.
- Addresses the Root Cause — Goes beyond managing behavior in the moment to help heal the underlying trauma that’s driving it.
- Empowers the Whole Family — Equips parents and caregivers with practical, compassionate tools they can put to use every day, not just in session.
- Evidence-Based — Developed at TCU’s Karyn Purvis Institute of Child Development and backed by ongoing research into trauma and attachment.
- Trauma-Sensitive Correction — Teaches children healthier ways to meet their needs and express big feelings — through understanding, not punishment.
Talk To One of Our Counselors
Jessica Chacon, LPC Associate, is a certified TBRI® Practitioner at Redeemed Life Counseling. She holds a Master’s in Crisis Response & Trauma Counseling and a Master’s in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Liberty University, and integrates TBRI with EMDR, IFS, and attachment-based approaches to help children and families build connection and heal from trauma. Jessica works with clients ages 8 and up, both in person and virtually, and is supervised by Michelle Fitzhugh, MA, LPC-S.
Learn more about Jessica Chacon or meet the rest of our counseling team.
Michelle Fitzhugh, LPC-S
Licensed Professional Counselor – Supervisor
Founder & Executive Director
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Chris Washam, LCSW
Licensed Clinical Social Worker
Clinical Director
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Jennifer Lafabregue, LPC
Licensed Professional Counselor
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Courtney Osborne, LPC
Licensed Professional Counselor
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Heather Love, LMFT
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist
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Kassie Hitchcock, LPC
Licensed Professional Counselor
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Marianne Pierson, LMFT
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist
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Kendal Rice, LPC, CAS
Licensed Professional Counselor
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Matt Faulkner, LMFT Associate
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist Associate
Supervised by Dr. Charette Dersch, PhD, LMFT-S.
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Jessica Chacon, LPC Associate
Licensed Professional Counselor Associate
Supervised by Sharon Michelle Fitzhugh, MA LPC-S
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Chris Shade, LPC Associate
Licensed Professional Counselor Associate
Supervised by Sharon Michelle Fitzhugh, MA, LPC-S
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Jessica Bradley
Masters Level Student Counselor
Supervised by Sharon Michelle Fitzhugh, MA, LPC-S
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Nicole Resendiz
Masters Level Student Counselor
Supervised by Sharon Michelle Fitzhugh, MA, LPC-S
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How TBRI Can Help Your Child (and Your Family)
- Rebuild Trust — Help your child learn, over time, that adults are safe and that their needs will actually be met.
- Reduce Behavioral Challenges — Address the fear-based behaviors — defiance, aggression, withdrawal, or shutting down — that stem from trauma, rather than just reacting to them.
- Strengthen the Parent-Child Bond — Use connection-based strategies that build a warmer, more harmonious home environment for everyone.
- Promote Emotional Regulation — Give your child real tools to manage big feelings in healthy ways, instead of being overwhelmed by them.
- Equip Caregivers with Confidence — Replace guesswork and exhaustion with a clear framework you can lean on, even on the hardest days.
- Support Long-Term Healing — Create a foundation of safety and trust that supports your child’s growth and development for years to come.
For children who also need more targeted, individual support, our Child and Adolescent Counseling and EMDR Trauma Therapy services can complement TBRI as part of a broader treatment plan.
Your Path to Healing
1. Free Phone Consultation
We’ll start with a conversation about your child, your family’s story, and what’s brought you to this point — no pressure, just a chance to see if TBRI is the right fit.
2. Assessment & Personalized Plan
Your counselor will get to know your child and family more deeply and build a TBRI-informed plan tailored to your specific needs.
3. Ongoing Support & Connection
Through sessions and practical tools for home, you and your child will keep building trust, safety, and connection — together, one step at a time.
Frequently Asked Questions
It’s both. TBRI works with your child directly and equips you as the caregiver with strategies you can use at home, since lasting change happens most powerfully within the relationship between a child and the trusted adults in their life.
Traditional behavior approaches often focus on managing what a child does. TBRI focuses on why — the fear, unmet needs, or dysregulation underneath the behavior — and addresses that root cause through connection first.
No. TBRI is used with children and families at many different stages, not just right after placement. Healing and building trust can happen at any age, though it may look different at 15 than it does at 5.
Not at all. While TBRI was developed with children from foster care and adoption in mind, it’s also effective for any child who has experienced early trauma, neglect, medical trauma, or significant disruption — even within a biological family.
Caregiver involvement is central to TBRI. Because connection with you is part of what helps your child heal, you’ll be an active part of the process, not just someone dropping your child off at the door.
Every family’s timeline looks different depending on your child’s history and needs. Some families notice small shifts in connection and behavior within weeks; deeper healing of trust and attachment is usually a longer, gradual process. Your counselor will help you understand what progress looks like along the way.
Not for most families. TBRI itself is a secular, research-based model, but its emphasis on unconditional love, patience, grace, and restoring what’s broken resonates deeply with many families’ faith values. At Redeemed Life, we’re glad to integrate that faith perspective alongside the clinical approach, wherever it’s meaningful to you.
TBRI’s whole-family approach means siblings and the broader family system aren’t left out of the conversation. We can talk through how to support everyone in the home, not just the child with the most visible needs.
Yes. Kinship caregivers face many of the same attachment and trust challenges as foster and adoptive parents, and TBRI’s tools apply just as directly to your situation.
It’s a relaxed, no-obligation conversation where you can share a bit about your child and family, ask questions, and get a feel for whether TBRI and our counselors are the right fit before you commit to anything.
Reach out using the button below, or contact our office directly. We’ll schedule your free consultation and walk you through the next steps from there.