Joshua Sparrow

Dr. Joshua Sparrow leads the Brazelton Touchpoints Center (BTC) in the Division of Developmental Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital, and is associate professor in psychiatry part-time at Harvard Medical School. Across the U.S., in sovereign Tribal Nations, and in many other countries, BTC provides professional, leadership, and organizational development, as well as research and evaluation services and innovative tools and webinars for parents, pediatricians, early childhood educators, home visitors, child welfare workers, infant and parent mental health clinicians, and children's libraries and museums staff. BTC is home to in-person and virtual trainings and workshops including the evidence-based Touchpoints Approach and Parenting Curriculum, as well as Beyond Trauma Informed Care, From Challenging to Trust-Building Conversations, Child Behaviors that Challenge, the Developmental Journey Conversation Tool, Everyone’s Mental Health, Family to Family Real Talk, Family Connections Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation Training, the Indigenous Early Learning Collaborative, Learning to Listen, the National Substance Use Disorder Summit, Supporting Father Involvement, and the Brazelton Institute (the Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale and the Newborn Behavioral Observation).

Since 2001, BTC has collaborated with American Indian/Alaskan Native Early Head Start, Head Start and Child Care programs, early childhood education departments in Tribal Colleges and Universities in partnership with the American Indian College Fund, and has offered a leadership development program for Native American leaders in early childhood education. BTC’s Research and Evaluation Unit has served as evaluator for numerous U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Substance Abuse Mental Health Service Administration Tribal Project LAUNCH grantees, and as subcontractor for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families (ACF)-funded Tribal MIECHV, as well as the ACF-funded Tribal Research Center, based at the Centers for American Indian and Alaska Native Health of the Colorado School of Public Health, at the University of Colorado, Denver. Most recently, with funding from the Kellogg Foundation, BTC has launched the Indigenous Early Learning Collaborative, bringing Native communities together to self-determine their most pressing questions and the methods they choose to answer them.