Dr. Stroud has a long and positive history of consulting with numerous professional communities including: mental health, home visiting, early education, developmental disabilities, and allied professionals, seeking to build their skill set within the area of Infant Mental Health. Through the use of a Reflective Practice Supervision model, countless individuals and groups have benefited from Dr. Stroud’s consultation groups and mentorship, ranging from developing professionals to advanced Infant Mental Health practitioners. Dr. Stroud currently provides reflective groups, for information on availability and rates contact Dr. Stroud directly.
Dr. Stroud’s first book How to Measure a Relationship is actively being used in mental health, early care & education, and hospital settings. This text has been well received among a diverse community of professionals that support young children and families. Measuring a relationship is a necessary skill for assessment, treatment and billing. In a single patient payee system, how does one both define, and treat the interpersonal dynamics that support relational health. How to Measure a Relationship is one of the first publications to systematically address the challenges practitioners experience using relationship-based models within publicly-funded programs.
Truly Unique! While reading Intentional Living, one cannot help but feel Dr. Stroud understands me. She knows what has happened to me. She knows how difficult experiences from childhood, adolescence and adulthood have limited me and my ability to develop relationships. Dr. Stroud helps me understand how my culture has contributed to my values, expectations, and disappointments. Most importantly, she provides in each chapter real life scenarios, exercises, and explanations that stop my past from being the present. With Dr. Stroud’s help, I am being freed from seeing and living my life through the lens of the past. I am much better able to enjoy the moment and be fully present in a relationship. I feel free. Thank you.
— Victor Bernstein, PhD
Embrace Cultural Ignorance acknowledges the importance of honoring varying perspectives and identities, with curiosity and positive regard. Dr. Stroud emphasizes that every individual exists within a culture. Our culture influences who and how we are and what we carry into relationships. A stance of cultural ignorance invites us to suspend judgement and sit with the tension of not having to respond with the answers, knowing that engaging with openness and curiosity can, not only strengthen but bring clarity to relationships. Dr. Stroud offers a powerful reminder that we are experts of our own experiences and what one brings into relationships is valuable and should be honored with grace and generosity.
“Dr. Barbara Stroud is the forward-thinking co-founder and first president of the California Association of Infant Mental Health. Her leadership has been instrumental in organizing efforts for education and advocacy, and I have personally enjoyed and truly benefitted from her responsive, calm, and thoughtful style coupled with her passion for effecting meaningful change in our work together to build CalAIMH.”
- Joshua D. Feder, MD,
Editor in Chief, The Carlat Child Psychiatry Report, Adjunct Professor, Infant and Early Childhood Development, Fielding Graduate University.