Leading & Educating: Sarah Vrabic

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HopePHL’s own Sarah Vrabic, Manager of Everyday Learning Play Spaces, delivered an interactive workshop for the Tennessee Association of Infant Mental Health. The workshop was titled “Seeing the Unseen: How can we best support young children and their families experiencing homelessness?” 

​​Sarah tackled topics such as:

• how experiencing homelessness may affect a young child and their family
• research findings that show when parents feel supported, their children display better social-emotional functioning, and
  
• actionable ways to support children and caregivers through a relationship-based and trauma responsive lens  

She drew from her research expertise and nearly decade-long experience working with families experiencing homelessness in Philadelphia. As a result of her workshop, new efforts are being made by the Tennessee Department of Education to improve the their data collection process, so that young children experiencing homelessness in Tennessee have better access to high quality early education and supports.

Feedback from one audience member included, “Sarah, it is so encouraging to hear from people like you who work in this field and know the faces of people going through homelessness AND work to do something about it. Wonderful training experience! I didn't realize there are families in my program who could be considered homeless by the definition. Thank you!”