The ROOTS Approach
The ROOTS Approach strengthens the relationships that shape families, organizations, and communities. Through education, reflection, and practical application, people learn to respond with greater awareness, build trust, and create conditions where meaningful growth can happen.
A Practical Path
ROOTS supports people to look beneath behavior to understand the needs, experiences, relationships, and nervous-system responses shaping it.
Connect → Safe → Understand → Regulate → Repair → Choice
We combine relationship and brain science with lived experience to create practical tools people can use every day. We lead with curiosity instead of judgment and support growth without controlling who someone becomes.
Experiences Shape Us
PACEs: Positive and Adverse Childhood Experiences
The experiences we have growing up help shape how we understand ourselves, relationships, safety, and the world around us.
Adverse experiences matter, but they are not the whole story. Positive experiences, supportive relationships, and protective factors also shape development and well-being.
We can’t always change what happened.
We can strengthen what happens next.
ROOTS focuses on strengthening connection, felt safety, trust, belonging, and healthy relationships that support children, adults, families, and communities.
About the Programs
ROOTS-developed education and third-party curricula are presented as separate offerings. All third-party programs remain credited to their developers and are delivered within the practitioner’s or facilitator’s authorized scope.
TBRI® Caregiver Training
Trust-Based Relational Intervention® was developed by Dr. Karyn Purvis and Dr. David Cross at the Karyn Purvis Institute of Child Development at Texas Christian University. TBRI® is an attachment-based, trauma-informed intervention designed to meet the complex needs of children who have experienced adversity.
HALO Project Curricula
Making Sense of Your Worth and Parenting for Positive Self-Worth were developed by Cindy R. Lee, LCSW, and are utilized by HALO Project International. These curricula support the development of positive self-worth, secure relationships, and connected caregiving.
Visit HALO Project International
PC CARES Learning Circles
This five-session interactive series explores community-led, culturally grounded strategies for suicide prevention and youth wellness. Developed in partnership with Alaska Native communities, PC CARES brings scientific research and Indigenous ways of knowing together to support locally informed solutions.
Participants explore prevention strategies, practice supportive conversations, and identify practical actions that fit their communities.
Facilitated by Cassie Eads, a trained PC CARES facilitator.
Professional Foundations
ROOTS draws from relationship and brain science, attachment, protective factors, peer-support principles, lived experience, and Cassie Eads’ professional education. These foundations shape a practical, relationship-centered approach to connection, regulation, self-worth, behavior, and relational healing. Third-party curricula remain separate from ROOTS-developed education.
The Principles That Guide Us
ROOTS leads with connection, curiosity, and respect for each person’s inherent worth. We believe felt safety creates the conditions for growth, behavior is communication, awareness creates choice, and curiosity comes before judgment.
We look beneath behavior rather than reacting only to what appears on the surface. We value honest reflection, healthy boundaries, personal responsibility, and repair. Our role is not to control who people become, but to offer understanding and practical tools that support informed choices.