About API's Advisory Board
Attachment Parenting International's Advisory Board members are experts in their professional fields, giving advice, lending their expertise, and supporting the mission and vision of API.
Stephen J. Bavolek, PhD
President of Family Development Resources, Inc.
Nurturingparenting.com
Stephen J. Bavolek, PhD, is a recognized leader in the fields of child abuse and neglect treatment and prevention and parenting education. Dr. Bavolek's professional background includes working with emotionally disturbed children and adolescents in schools and residential settings and with abused children and abusive parents in treatment programs.
Dr. Bavolek has conducted extensive research in the prevention and treatment of child abuse and neglect. He has conducted over 1,000 workshops, has appeared on more than 50 radio and television talk show programs, and has published numerous books, articles, programs, and newsletters.
He is the principal author of the Nurturing Parenting Programs©, designed to prevent and treat child abuse and neglect, and the Adult-Adolescent Parenting Inventory (AAPI), an inventory designed to assess high risk parenting attitudes. Dr. Bavolek is President of Family Development Resources, Inc., and Executive Director of Family Nurturing Centers International.
Sir Richard Bowlby, Bt.
Richard Bowlby, the son of Dr. John Bowlby who first developed attachment theory, worked as a scientific photographer in various medical research institutions where he produced visual aids for communicating research findings.
He retired in 1999 to promote a wider understanding of attachment theory to healthcare practitioners and interested lay people. His present concern is the psychological impact on babies and toddlers being cared for by unfamiliar people in day care who do not develop long-term secondary attachment bonds to one caregiver.
He also gives lectures to a wide range of health care professionals using video material and personal insights to promote a much broader understanding of his father's work on attachment theory. He focuses on wider audiences using video material to help communicate the emotional significance of "Attachment Theory," a potentially dry academic subject with very personally challenging significance.
He supports a range of organizations that address various attachment issues and is seeking ways to help the general public benefit from a better understanding of childhood attachment relationships. His eventual goal is to find ways of "crossing the species barrier" between academics and the general public, to liberate the professional knowledge of attachment theory into the population at large. He is developing a broader knowledge of associated subjects, especially the emerging research about the role of fathers and the long-term significance of their early relationships with their children.
Barbara Clinton, MSW
Director, Center for Health Services
Vanderbilt University
Barbara Clinton is director of the Center for Health Services. Clinton supports community health efforts and links disadvantaged groups to the university's resources. Clinton was founding director of the Center's award-winning Maternal Infant Health Outreach Worker program, which mobilizes women in Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, and West Virginia to implement local child development programs. This program was recently honored by the World Health Organization.
Clinton serves as an adjunct assistant professor in the Vanderbilt University Schools of Medicine and Nursing. She has served as an advisor to former Vice President Al Gore, as well as to the Tennessee Commission on Aging, the National Center for Children in Poverty at Columbia University, the Appalachian Rural Science Initiative of the National Science Foundation, and several private foundations.
Her work has been recognized with the Families Count Award of the Annie E Casey Foundation and the Oscar van Leer award. She was recently honored with the Mary Jane Werthan Award of Vanderbilt University for her "inspiring and visionary impact on the lives of women at Vanderbilt and beyond."
Isabelle Fox, PhD
Psychotherapist & Author
FoxBeingThere.com
Dr. Fox received degrees from Harvard/Radcliffe College and UCLA. For 35 years, she was a practicing psychotherapist at the Western Psychological Center, in Encino, California, specializing in parent-child relationships and developmental issues. For 10 years, she was the senior mental health consultant for Operation Head Start in Los Angeles, and she is a frequent lecturer on child development issues.
She is the author of Being There: The Benefits of a Stay-at-Home Parent (Barron's, 1996) and Growing Up: Attachment Parenting from Kindergarten to College (Sun Publishers, 2003). Dr. Fox has posted two articles online dealing with custody and visitation issues involving infants and young children.
She lives in Sherman Oaks, California, and was a stay-at-home parent for ten years. She and her husband are the proud parents of two sons, one daughter, and seven grandchildren.
Martha Sears, RN
Registered Nurse & Author
AskDrSears.com
Martha, wife of renowned pediatrician William Sears, MD, is the mother of eight children, a registered nurse, a former childbirth educator, a La Leche League Leader, and a lactation consultant.
Martha is the co-author of 25 parenting books and is a popular lecturer and media guest, drawing on her 18 years of breastfeeding experience with her 8 children (including Stephen with Down Syndrome and Lauren, her adopted daughter).
Martha speaks frequently at national parenting conferences and is noted for her advice on how to handle the most common problems facing today's mothers with their changing lifestyles. Martha is able to connect with both full-time mothers and mothers who work full-time, because she herself has experienced both styles of parenting. Martha takes great pride in referring to herself as a Òprofessional mother,Ó and one of her favorite quips when someone voices their concern about her having eight children in an already populated world is: "The world needs my children."
Martha and Dr. Bill have been guests on over 100 television shows including 20/20, Donahue, Good Morning America, The Oprah Winfrey Show, CBS This Morning, CNN, The Today Show, Dateline, and, most recently, The Dr. Phil Show, where they are regular guests. Martha and Dr. Bill are best known for their Sears Parenting Library published by Little Brown: The Pregnancy Book, The Birth Book, The Baby Book, The Discipline Book, The Breastfeeding Book, The Fussy Baby Book, The A.D.D. Book, The Family Nutrition Book, The Premature Baby Book, The Baby Sleep Book, and The Healthiest Kid In The Neighborhood.
William Sears, MD
Pediatrician and Author
AskDrSears.com
William Sears, one of America's most renowned pediatricians, is the father of 8 children, ages 15 to 40 years, author of over 40 books on childcare, and Associate Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine. A pediatrician for over 35 years, he currently lives and practices pediatrics along with his three sons Dr. Bob and Dr. Jim, and Dr. Pete in San Clemente, California.
Dr. Sears received his pediatric training at Harvard Medical School's Children's Hospital in Boston and The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, the largest children's hospital in the world, where he served as Associate Ward Chief of the newborn nursery and Associate Professor of Pediatrics. In addition to writing many books and scientific articles, Dr. Sears is a medical and parenting consultant to Baby Talk and Parenting Magazines. Dr. Sears is a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Royal College of Pediatricians.
"Dr. Bill" (as his little patients call him) and Martha have been guests on over 100 television shows including 20/20, Donahue, Good Morning America, The Oprah Winfrey Show, CBS This Morning, CNN, The Today Show, Dateline, and, most recently, The Dr. Phil Show, where they are regular guests. Dr. Bill is the on-line pediatrician for Parenting.com. William and Martha are best known for their Sears Parenting Library published by Little Brown: The Pregnancy Book, The Birth Book, The Baby Book, The Discipline Book, The Breastfeeding Book, The Fussy Baby Book, The A.D.D. Book, The Family Nutrition Book, The Premature Baby Book, The Baby Sleep Book, and The Healthiest Kid In The Neighborhood.
Karen Walant, PhD
Psychotherapist & Author
Dr. Walant is an expert on attachment and intimacy. She wrote one of the first books for psychotherapists that integrated attachment theory into the treatment process, entitled Creating the Capacity for Attachment. In her groundbreaking book, Dr. Walant defined the concept of normative abuse as "parenting practices that uphold current cultural norms but, when viewed from a later era, can be seen as unempathic and unresponsive to children." She believes that the principles of Attachment Parenting are our society's best hope at shifting from cultural norms that are no longer in our children's best interests.
Dr. Walant is a lecturer in the areas of attachment research and neuroscience, empathy, and parenting, and is a popular speaker in both her local community and at major conferences, such as Harvard University's Addictions Seminar. She has been in private practice for over 20 years and lives with her husband and their 3 teenage children in Ridgefield, Connecticut. She is a board-certified psychotherapist and an Advisory Board member of Attachment Parenting International.
