This story was revised on Feb. 24 to correct a transcription error.
A map of the world–purple pegs scattered across–marks the entrance to TCU’s Institute of Child Development.
Dr. Karyn Purvis is the director of the TCU Institute of Child Development, a best-selling author, and a pioneer in understanding traumatized adopted children.
“There’s this great American saying: ‘Is this the sickness for which you’re the medicine?’” Purvis said. “A child with a history of trauma…that’s the sickness for which our work is the medicine.”
An Explosion
About 16 years ago, Purvis made a commitment to understanding and healing traumatized children.
Dr. David Cross is the co-director of the TCU Institute of Child Development and was Purvis’ mentor as she finished her doctorate degree at TCU.
Cross, along with Purvis, created a summer camp called The Hope Connection. At this camp, they conducted behavioral and neurological research with at-risk adopted children.
“The camp is about 80 percent Karyn and 20 percent me. It’s her baby,” Cross said. “Without her idea and energy, none of it would be possible.”
Purvis said the outcomes were breathtaking.
Their research revealed a reduction in negative behaviors, a dramatic shift in attachment behaviors, and an explosion in language.
A five-year-old boy entered the camp without the ability to communicate. Within 10 days of the camp, he was talking in paragraphs. “Not little sentences here and there, but like in dissertations,” Purvis said.
“We were absolutely smitten. We didn’t understand why the change was so dramatic,” Purvis said. “If we could understand how these children started deep healing in such a short amount of time, we could change the world for tens of thousands of children…and that’s exactly what happened.”
Bridging the Gap
Before finding stray children with broken wings, Karyn Purvis was “a little girl finding little orphaned bunnies in the field or little birds fallen out of the nest.”
“I’ve known since I was six that saving the life of the vulnerable was my calling,” Purvis said. “At 14, I knew that I was a steward of children of the world.”
As a teenager, Purvis taught children’s church and children’s choir.
At 20, Purvis began fostering both younger and older children, at-risk street kids, runaways, drug addicts and prostitutes.
Nothing holds Purvis back from helping those in need. Her ruthless compassion and love for others makes her the caregiver in her extended family.
A week before Purvis took the GRE a family member gave birth to a child with a heart defect. Purvis immediately flew to her family member’s side and slept beside the baby on the hospital floor every night.
“She came back, took her GRE, and scored one of the highest scores I’ve ever seen,” Cross said.
Purvis has a way with combining intellect with creativity and science with religion to achieve what some would consider impossible.
“She can bridge the gap,” Cross said. “She has one foot in the world of science and one foot in the world of faith.”
Purvis fuses neuroscience and faith to create an unparalleled method for healing traumatized children.
Her system, Trust-Based Relational Intervention (TBRI), is designed for traumatized adopted children and has proven effective in creating healing environments.
According to her website, “TBRI is based on a solid foundation of neuropsychological theory and research, tempered by humanitarian principles.”
Sarah Mercado, a director for the Caring Family Network/DePelchin Children’s Center, uses Purvis’ TBRI approach in her workplace.
“It’s made an enormous impact,” Mercado said. “It’s changed the agency culture top to bottom.”
Purvis teaches TBRI in seminars across the country.
During her training, Purvis emphasizes her TBRI approach by combining neuroscience and the healing power of love.
Bill Menchaca attended Purvis’ training last year. Menchaca is a psychologist for Tarrant County Juvenile Services and keeps Purvis’ ideas and concepts in mind when working with children.
Menchaca said he likes Purvis’ comprehensiveness in her approach.
“She utilizes multiple ways to help the youth, not just sitting down with a therapist,” Menchaca said. “We are most definitely seeing improvement with decreasing physical restraints and becoming a trauma informed direct care staff.”
Planting a System
A facility for orphaned children in Illinois asked Purvis for help with an extremely violent teenage girl that had been through the adoption system.
Purvis signed legal releases and had two security guards in tow.
Within a week, Purvis turned the girl and the organization around without a single incident occurring.
Dr. Cross said Purvis’ ability to work with children is a gift.
“It’s hard to put what she can do into words. She has extraordinary passion,” Cross said. “The children know she’s there for them. She’s the real deal.”
Mercado said Purvis is remarkable.
“We all hope to have that level of interaction with kids that she has,” Mercado said. “It’s something that we watch through several different lenses to learn how to do what she does. So much is just how she is.”
Purvis’ passion for children fuels her desire to impact the entire foster care system. She is an expert witness in cases of child abuse on a state and national level.
Currently Purvis is focusing on her new initiative, the Travis County Collaborative. Purvis works with colleagues to train everyone that comes into contact with foster children.
Cross said the collaborative works with the foster care system to train families, teachers, coaches, judges, lawyers, and legislature how to heal at-risk adopted children.
“It started with a summer camp for families, then doing home programs with organizations, then we started getting requests in Travis County,” Cross said. “We knew we really had to impact the entire system.”
Dr. Call was one of Purvis’ Ph.D students in 2007 and now serves as the project manager for the initiative.
“I saw what Dr. Purvis and Cross were researching and developing and I immediately knew I wanted to be here,” Cross said. “Coming here felt like coming home.”
Cross said the ultimate goal of the initiative is to “increase healing for children who are in the foster care system by having anyone who has anything to do with foster children on the same page.”
Purvis said she is thrilled with the success of the collaborative.
“What we thought would be a one summer camp became an international institute with a global vision and mission for changing the lives of children,” Purvis said.
The collaborative has the capacity for global planting. Current installments in Haiti and Australia activate the interest of parents, staff, social workers, and government in learning how to heal kids with a history of trauma.
“From the government to the person in the field-when we have that continuum active, we have a change for real global influence,” Purvis said.
Mercado serves as a member of steering committee and helps get the project off the ground. She assists Purvis in training with over 200 individuals and organizations in Travis County.
“People are making really positive decisions and are trying to be mindful through a TBRI perspective, so kids are getting the best all the way around,” Mercado said.
Purvis’ skill as a spokesperson has allowed her to connect with professionals, students, and children, alike.
Menchaca still recalls Purvis’ eloquence in the training he attended last year.
“She has a special ability to connect with kids who have experienced trauma and everyone around them,” Menchaca said.
Even those that work with her each day are awed each time Purvis speaks.
Mercado said she feels lucky and inspired each time she goes out with Purvis.
“She’s amazing because you go out with her to speak, and there’s all these people there and you can see how many lives she’s touched,” Mercado said. “You get her insight and experience and you feel very lucky.”
Dr. Call, who has worked with Purvis for seven years, said she relishes each moment to watch Purvis work.
“I’m in awe. I’m standing back, taking it all in. Everything comes so naturally to her. It’s indescribable. It’s joyful,” Call said. “It’s an honor to be able to work with her, sit in a room and listen to her wisdom.”
Changing the World for Children
When it comes to global influence, obstacles don’t exist for Karyn Purvis. She overcomes language barriers, harsh living conditions, and religion to help children all over the world.
“We have people who are seeking our help all over the world,” Call said. While in Romania, Purvis worked with an organization that conducted training for group homes.
One of the homes had a boy whom psychiatrists labeled schizophrenic.
Psychiatrists said he was a lost cause.
Purvis worked with the boy every day during her stay with the organization. His schizophrenic symptoms disappeared, and when she left he was doing beautifully, Cross said.
“She’s extraordinarily good at three things: she’s a public speaker, a fundraiser, and a ‘child whisperer’–there isn’t a child she couldn’t heal,” Cross said.
When Purvis travels to Rwanda, she trains orphanages and supervisors, meets with churches, officers of the high court, and the first lady. Her only intent–to change the lives of children.
“I could be in Rwanda, Ethiopia, anywhere in the world, in a room of 40 babies and not a single one would cry because they know that no one is coming,” Purvis said. “I always tell children that if it’s in my power, I will move heaven and earth to meet your needs.”
The next plan on her agenda is to create a program for TCU in Rwanda, “not for a shopping trip in Europe, but to see how students can change the world for children.”
“Our motto is ‘Learning to change the world for children,’” Purvis said. “It is not words. And it is not rhetoric. It is every breath that we breathe. Every action of our being is to literally change the world for children and we’re doing it.”