COSP^TM Facilitator Training

Hall Building, Rooms 2015/2016
Central Piedmont Community College
1112 Charlottetowne Ave.
Charlotte, NC 28204

Free parking in deck next to Hall Building

Video Intro Circle of Security

If the Charlotte Circle of Security Facilitator Training is not able to take place on the scheduled dates because of COVID-19, this training will be switched to an online format that will take place over a 5-day period, September 6-9 and Monday, September 12. (Due to the Labor Day holiday on September 5, the online training will extend to Monday September 12.) Your registration will be automatically transferred. Please clear your commitments for the entire 5 days to be prepared for either format.

For everyone’s safety, attendees of the Charlotte Circle of Security Facilitator Training must be fully vaccinated. If you are unable to be vaccinated, please contact Deb Mugno, PCC Director of COSP Training and Outreach, to discuss options: [email protected].

Even though fully vaccinated, if you or anyone in your home is ill at the time of the training, please contact the registrar at COSI and request to be transferred into the next online training or into a future in-person training: [email protected].

The event space is well-ventilated. COVID protocol regarding personal space and masks will comply with the then current Mecklenburg County, NC, public health regulations. Please note, this may change in order to comply with any changes in state or local regulations.

Circle of Security Facilitator Training is available in an online format for those who feel uncomfortable attending an in-person training. Go to the Circle of Security Facilitator Training page on the Circle of Security International website, and click on Online Live Trainings for more information.

Anyone providing parenting education and/or counseling to parents of young children can benefit from training in the Circle of Security Parenting approach – including social workers, pediatricians, early childhood educators, marriage and family therapists, mental health counselors, home visitors, family support workers, outreach workers and behavior support specialists.

Circle of Security Parenting can be used with individuals and in groups, in agencies or private practice, and in a variety of community settings, such as preschools, primary schools, faith-based organizations, adoption agencies, pediatric or OB/gyn offices, La Leche League, mental health clinics, substance abuse programs, departments of social services, prisons, public health clinics, community health centers, and family medicine practices.

*Circle of Security Parenting video may only be used by those who have completed the 4-day training. Completion of the 4-day training does not grant permission to train others in the use of Circle of Security Parenting materials.

Registration is open for the September 2022 in-person training in Charlotte, NC. To register, go to the Circle of Security Facilitator Training page on the Circle of Security International website, click on In-person Trainings, scroll down to find Charlotte North Carolina, and click the Register button. Then click Continue Order and then Enter Attendee Information. Enter all required information, and then select Continue to Checkout.

Create an account following the prompts. At the Payment screen, select Payment Method: Invoice/Bank Wire or Check. You will be able to change your method of payment and pay by credit card at a later date if you choose to do so. Do not pay your registration fee until requested to do so by COSI, likely during August 2022. For questions about registration, contact the COSI Registrar at [email protected].

Participants are urged not to make plane reservations until this training reaches the confirmed status on the COSI website – anticipated to occur early in August. Because of pandemic-related uncertainty, attendees are advised to make travel reservations that are either refundable or can be rescheduled at no cost.

As Charlotte is a busy city and hotels are in high demand, hotel reservations should be made as soon as possible. Because of pandemic-related uncertainly, attendees are advised to make hotel reservations that may be fully refunded with 24- to 48-hour notice.

Registration Fee: $1,000 (includes COS Parenting video, COS Parenting Training Manual, Parent handouts, license to use the above materials to teach COS Parenting to caregivers). Registration closes on August 29, 2022. The registration fee is fully refundable through August 29, 2022. After that date, a $200 cancelation fee will be applied to your refund, or your registration may be transferred to another person or location. (Rules are different for group registration as described on COSI training webpage.)

Member Discount: Members of the Psychoanalytic Center of the Carolinas are eligible for a 15% discount using our host code. Members may obtain the host code from Deb Mugno at [email protected].

Daily Schedule
Tuesday Registration: 8:30 - 9:00
Tuesday-Friday: Morning Session 9:00 - 12:00
Lunch 12:00 - 1:30
Afternoon session 1:30 - 5:00

Dress in layers to be comfortable, as room temperature may vary. Bring a lumbar support pillow if sitting for several hours is uncomfortable. The meeting room is equipped with wireless Internet for checking email during the lunch hour and breaks.

Coffee, tea and water will be available all day. Two healthy snacks will be served mid-morning and mid-afternoon. Lunch is not provided. Participants are invited to bring lunch or may leave to go to a nearby restaurant or food truck during the one and a half hour lunch break.

Check back for restaurant details.

Air Travel: Participants are urged not to make plane reservations until this training reaches the confirmed status on the Circle of Security International website – anticipated to occur early in August. Because of pandemic-related uncertainty, attendees are advised to make travel reservations that are either refundable or can be rescheduled at no cost.

Driving Time to Nearest Airports:
Charlotte Douglas International Airport, North Carolina – 7 miles, 18 minutes

Hotels: As Charlotte is a busy city and hotels are in high demand, hotel reservations should be made as soon as possible. Because of pandemic-related uncertainly, attendees are advised to make hotel reservations that may be fully refunded with 24- to 48-hour notice.

Hotels close to Piedmont Community College

To encourage participation by North Carolina and South Carolina non-profit organizations serving families with young children, the Psychoanalytic Center of the Carolinas will award grants to selected NC and SC non-profit organizations to cover half ($500) of the cost of tuition for up to two staff members or volunteers from each organization. Organizations must commit to delivering at least two Circle of Security Parenting groups to the community between November 2022 and October 2023.

Please complete the Scholarship Application and submit by email no later than Friday, July 30, 2022. Scholarships are limited in number and will be awarded to eligible applicants as they are received on a rolling basis.

Please email your Scholarship Application and any questions about scholarships to Deb Mugno, PCC Director of COSP Training and Outreach: [email protected].

• Describe the attachment theory that provides the underpinnings for the Circle of Security Parenting program.
• Describe the attachment research that provides the underpinnings for the Circle of Security Parenting program.
• Explain the long-term benefits of shifting caregiver focus from behavior management to enhancing the quality of relationship.
• Utilize group process and video clips of parent-child interactions to support increased empathy in caregivers.
• Explain the concept of reflective functioning.
• Describe the specific steps to building self-reflection in caregivers.
• Utilize the Circle of Security graphic to explain the concepts of secure base and safe haven.
• Utilize the Circle of Security Graphic to explain the parent's role in supporting the child's need to explore the world as well as to receive comfort and protection.
• Identify new strategies to use with caregivers to improve the regulation of emotions in their children.
• Describe what is meant by disorganized attachment.
• Describe what types of parental behaviors are associated with disorganized attachment in their children.
• Describe step-by-step approaches for promoting secure attachment in children.
• Utilize reflective questioning to help caregivers compassionately examine their limitations as parents.
• Explain the concept of relational rupture and repair.
• Describe typical patterns of relational rupture whereby caregivers lose their capacity to be bigger, stronger, wiser and kind.
• Describe how parents can use their own internal distress signals (also called "shark music") to identify moments of struggle in meeting their child's attachment needs.
• Explain what is meant by co-regulation of emotional experience.
• Describe how a child's resiliency may be strengthened by the parental stance of "bigger, stronger, wiser and kind.”

Neil Boris, MD, is a graduate of Grinnell College and the Tufts University School of Medicine. After completing his residency training at Brown University in pediatrics, adult and child psychiatry, Neil embarked on a research career focusing on the social and emotional development of high-risk children – especially those under five years of age.

His research has ranged from studying early intervention programs serving high-risk families in the U.S. to capturing the impact of community-based programs for orphans in Rwanda and Malawi. He has also always been a clinician and teacher, working in a variety of clinical settings from multi-disciplinary programs focused on young maltreated children to hospital-based practice with children with life-threatening illnesses or community-based programs serving substance-abusing parents and their young children.

Neil has been a tenured Full Professor at Tulane University (in both public health and medicine) where his passion for teaching and training was awarded with a Teaching Scholar Award. He's held several leadership positions, including being an associate editor of the Infant Mental Health Journal, serving on the editorial board of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry to being on the board of directors of the World Association of Infant Mental Health. Neil lives in a lakeside home in Orlando, Florida with his wife, Adena, their three children – Jackie, Cooper and Andy – and his mother, Marylynn. He views life as a grand adventure and sees Circle of Security as a positive force in the world.

Susanne Walker Wilson, MSW, has been a therapist, parent educator, early intervention specialist, consultant and trainer in inner-city Washington, DC, Colombia, South America, and Appalachia for 26 years. She is a licensed clinical social worker, an Infant, Toddler, Family Specialist, and a certified resiliency educator with a private practice in Asheville, NC. Her focus is the intersection of early relational health, resilience, and public health prevention.

Circle of Security has informed and transformed Susanne's work and her own self-reflection for over a decade. She's facilitated dozens of COSP groups across diverse contexts and is becoming a COS Fidelity Coach. A member of the NC Infant Mental Health Association since its inception, and of the Psychoanalytic Center of the Carolinas, she's also part of the newly created Attachment Network of NC. She's grateful for the deep, diverse, and increasingly organized collaboration of COS champions across North Carolina generating collective impact.

In 2020, through the nonprofit, Resources for Resilience, which she co-founded, Susanne created and now leads a two-year initiative with local government funding to bring COSP groups and ongoing reunions to child welfare-involved parents and to the professionals who serve them. Since 2021 she and others are bringing COSP groups to North Carolina's Early Intervention workforce statewide.

Susanne's own kids, Caleb and Ascher, are 23 and 20. A source of tremendous delight in her life, they keep teaching her about the Circle. Cooking with friends, hiking in the Blue Ridge Mountains and traveling with her husband, Greg, are some of her favorite ways to play.

The instructors of this program have signed a Financial Disclosure Form and have no commercial support that represents a conflict of interest.

All participants will receive a Certificate of Attendance from Circle of Security International (COSI) once they complete a COSI program evaluation. Social workers may use this certificate to document up to 24 CE hours in all states of the US, except in California, Michigan, and West Virginia.

The Psychoanalytic Center of the Carolinas (PCC) designates this program to be eligible for up to 24 CE hours for Social Workers and Licensed Professional Counselors and 24 credits for psychologists*. Physicians are eligible to receive up to 24 Category 1 credits. Letters of attendance will be provided to all other attendees. See below for details. You must complete the PCC evaluation form to receive Continuing Education credits.

*NOTE: Psychologists must attend all instructional hours each day to receive any CE credit through the American Psychological Association (APA). The APA does not allow giving partial credit. If you are a psychologist registering for the program, please contact our administrator at [email protected] for additional information.

Instruction will be given at an introductory to intermediate level.

The Psychoanalytic Center of the Carolinas is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. The Psychoanalytic Center of the Carolinas maintains responsibility for this program and its content.

This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the accreditation requirements and policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) through the joint providership of American Psychoanalytic Association and the Psychoanalytic Center of the Carolinas. The American Psychoanalytic Association is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

The American Psychoanalytic Association designates this Live Activity for a maximum of 24 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

IMPORTANT DISCLOSURE INFORMATION FOR ALL LEARNERS: None of the planners and presenters for this educational activity have relevant financial relationship(s)* to disclose with ineligible companies* whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling, or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients.

*Financial relationships are relevant if the educational content an individual can control is related to the business lines or products of the ineligible company.

The Psychoanalytic Center of the Carolinas has been approved by the NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 6518. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. The Psychoanalytic Center of the Carolinas is solely responsible for all aspects of the program.