Cynthia Hall and the Karyn Purvis Institute of Child Development

TBRI ®

The scrapbook

About the client

The Karyn Purvis Institute of Child Development was co-founded by Dr Karyn Purvis, author of The Connected Child and a respected researcher with a global impact. The Institute and producer Cynthia Hall were aware of a problem. In Texas many children in the care system have been victims of trauma, which has been proven to affect the development of the brain. Often not receiving the right support, these children age out of services and find themselves in the criminal justice system. The Karyn Purvis Institute have developed Trust Based Relational Intervention (TBRI ®) as a way of helping children to recover and have a bright future. They came to us to raise awareness of this model and have a positive impact on children in Texas, and beyond.

The challenge

Not only was this film addressing an important social issue, there was also a lot of information to deliver. This had to be done in a way that was sensitive, intellectual and accessible with minimal use of stats. The film had to present this information to a varied audience that included adoptive parents, policy makers and professionals working with children.

The film

TBRI® empowers children who have experienced trauma to build their sense of trust. These interventions have several forms both in nurturing and behaviour correction, giving children the chance to begin the recovery process.

To present this subject to viewers we used a range of strong and clear visual metaphors that reflected the external realities of looking after a child and the internal workings of their mind. These included a crying child, whose thoughts are revealed after an intervention through a chalk board metaphor. This strong and clear visual language was enhanced by an informative and well-paced voiceover made up of archive audio from Dr Karyn Purvis. Together these allowed the information and techniques discussed to be memorable and detailed without resorting to stats. The result was a powerful and engaging animation on an important social issue.

The context

Find out more about how TBRI ® works here at the Karyn Purvis Institute website.