In this episode of Fostering Conversations, host Amy Smith sits down with Terumi Sagers, TBRI Specialist for Utah Foster Care, longtime foster parent, and adoptive parent. Together, they unpack the foundations of Trust‑Based Relational Intervention (TBRI)—a relationship‑centered, trauma‑informed caregiving approach developed by Dr. Karen Purvis and Dr. David Cross.

This conversation is filled with real‑life examples, practical tools, and compassionate insights for foster parents, kinship caregivers, educators, and anyone raising children—because, as Terumi explains, TBRI works for all humans, not just those with trauma backgrounds.

Terumi shares her extensive experience fostering, adopting, and training caregivers for over 15 years. She explains the three core TBRI principles—Connecting, Empowering, and Correcting—and why trust must be rebuilt from a “negative starting point” for many children who enter care.

You’ll hear:

This episode is a comforting mix of vulnerability, practical strategy, and hope for caregivers navigating the complexities of trauma‑impacted parenting.

Terumi Sagers

Visit UtahFosterCare.org to explore TBRI trainings, resources, and support opportunities.

Episode 67: Trust-Based Relational Intervention

Amy: On today’s episode, we’ll be talking to Terumi from Utah Foster Care about TBRI principles. This is a parenting strategy for anybody, parenting kids with trauma or anyone with kids in the home.

Welcome to Fostering Conversations. I’m your host, Amy Smith. Today we have as our guest, Terumi Sagers, who is the TBRI specialist for Utah Foster Care.

Welcome, Terumi.

Terumi: Thank you. Thank you for having me

Amy: . So you are the specialist. You’ve been teaching for a while. Tell us a little bit about yourself. So listeners just have a little bit of background.

Terumi: So my husband and I were foster parents for 20 years fostered and did respite for. A long time. We also adopted three of our four children from the foster care system, and I have been with Utah Foster Care for coming up on 15 years now, working on the training team.

Amy: so you are more than qualified is what I hear.

Terumi: I would hope so.

Amy: I love that. That’s amazing. So tell us let’s just start from the beginning. What is TBRI?

Terumi: So TBRI stands for trust-Based Relational Intervention and it is a parenting philosophy based out of research done by Dr. Karen Purvis and Dr. David Cross out of TCU.

Amy: so I’ve taken the TBR trainings as a foster parent. Something I always wonder, I don’t. Know, so I’m asking is TBRI only for kids with trauma or can it be used to parent any type of child?

Terumi: I love that question because when we first learned about it, it was in the context of working with kids that have experienced trauma or have had toxic levels of stress. But as the research has gone on. They have realized this works for all kids. This works in other relationships as well. And I have had families come through TBRI training and say, I don’t have any kids in my home, but I’ve been doing this with my coworkers, or I’ve been doing this with my spouse and this works everywhere.

And I love that. The reality is, yes, it works everywhere with everyone.

Amy: Yeah. And why is that? Maybe give us like a very small, I know TBRI is very intense and has so many layers, but can you give us like a little bit of a nutshell overview of what the basis of it is for listeners that maybe don’t know what it is.

Terumi: So we go back to that name, trust-based relational intervention, that we build trust in relationships, and that helps us have influence on behaviors of others. And when we put that relationship at the forefront and connecting with people on a really basic level, they feel that safety with us, and it allows us to then empower them.

It allows us to correct behaviors when we need to because they know they can trust us.

Amy: Yeah. Some of the, the basic things that I remember when I took the training years ago or, or is when one of the. activities, during the training is they have a pretend hurt essentially, and you ask, where is your hurt? May I put a bandaid on it?

And I, I think it really is so basic. You’re just doing these basic things of like you say. Building trust and with, especially with kids with trauma they don’t have that on any foundational level. And so starting with these really simple bandaid activities, makes them start being more comfortable and being able to trust their caregivers.

Terumi: Yeah. When we think about trust, we tend to think starting maybe at zero and going forward, but our kids in care have had traumas to the level that you’re not starting at zero. You’re starting at negative.

Amy: Yeah. That’s interesting. I hadn’t thought about that.

Terumi: time to get to zero. And so all of these activities, all of the strategic things that were being very intentional about teaching are to get you to zero to then start going forward in that relationship.

Amy: Yeah, and I think as a caregiver or a parent, that can be overwhelming because first of all, we want instant results, right? We want kids to just be amazing and trust us and obey and do everything. That would be amazing, but. And that’s just not reality for any child, but I think having that perspective of, you’re trying to even just get to zero, I think that’s a really good perspective for caregivers to think about.

I had never thought about that before, so I really like that.

Terumi: Yeah, when you have a baby that is born to you from the moment. Even in the womb, you are doing things that they learn to, Hey, this person’s taking care of me. I can trust and I’m safe. When a child just lands on your doorstep, they don’t know you. They don’t know. That you can be trusted in any way. And sometimes we forget that because we think everything that was in the past is in the past.

But trauma doesn’t go away the moment they hit your doorstep.

Amy: You just added another pile on actually.

Terumi: This is an additional trauma

Amy: Correct. Yeah.

Terumi: now I’m living with. Hopefully if we’re able to find kinship providers, someone I know at least, otherwise, being placed on the doorstep of well-intentioned

Total strangers.

Amy: know I, when I explain foster care to people, I, I say, think of how many people you have. If you and your spouse were unavailable to take care for your kids. The list is probably long, right? Kids in foster care, literally there’s no list, so they’re coming to a stranger’s house and it is.

Like still, to me it’s so mind boggling to think, wow, we have this many kids and this many adults really in the state of Utah and in the country that they have no one. And so their kids are going to strangers when they’re in a terrible situation. That’s really sad.

Terumi: Yes. As hard as it is to be in that stressful situation, having someone you can count on helps buffer that stress and these kids. Haven’t had someone that could count on and in fact have been hurt in relationships where they should have been kept safe.

Amy: Yeah.

Terumi: And so it puts you again at that deficit below zero because moms aren’t necessarily safe or dads aren’t necessarily safe.

And now I have a mom and a dad. I have no history that tells me I can trust them.

Amy: Yeah. I remember the first night we got our now adopted daughter. She was 14 months and it was the middle of the night and a caseworker brought her in a car seat and I. Came outside, took her out of the car seat, carried her to my couch. She was filthy. I didn’t choose to bathe there right then.

I was like, this poor kid is, going through a lot. So we, I just sat and held her, but it was so interesting because, she was tired and it was a lot, but that morning she would not let me hold her. She would let my husband hold her. She would let my kids hold her. But the mom figure it was a no.

And it was so interesting, and it took a few days for her to be okay with me holding her. But really these kids do have barriers and things that have happened to them that they can’t trust the adult female figure, or they can’t, they’re scared, and you have no idea why. So it’s crazy.

Terumi: And part of what we talk about with. TBRI and a lot of the trainings that we present to foster parents is about attachment and the attachment cycle and that you keep showing up, they will show you what their needs are and you keep showing up. What I love about TBRI is it’s not theoretical about what attachment is and how you build it.

It is very practical. Do this, then do this.

Amy: Yeah. Yeah,

Terumi: And we still cover that overarching idea around attachment, but it’s very hands-on, very holistic, very practical.

Amy: yeah. So tell us a little bit about the TBRI training that Utah Foster parents can participate in.

Terumi: So we offer what is called the caregiver series, and it is a series of eight classes. They are two and a half hours each, so by the time you finish, you have 20 hours of training there has been a new curriculum that has come out in the last six months, and I love it because it not only takes those principles, but it does widen the audience of who this is available too, and it makes it more user friendly even than it was before.

So we have nights where we’re talking about the brain and understanding the basics about , the brain a night about attachment. And then we go into what are called the principles. And there’s three principles of TBRI. We will spend two nights talking about connecting and building those relationships.

We will spend two nights talking about empowering, and this is some of the structures that we put in place to help kids calm their bodies and to help our homes be safe and calm places for them. And then we. Spend two nights talking about correcting behavior. Now, if we’ve put in the time as parents, which is what I always tell parents, when you choose to become a parent, you will put in time and you get to choose how you spend your time.

You can either front load it with a lot of connecting and a lot of empowering, or you can. Choose to do a lot of correcting. And in TBRI, we look at this as a pyramid that we want that foundation of connecting and empowering. And then the very top is the correcting. And even in that, we break it down into we’re gonna teach the life skills we want.

And at the very top is correcting behaviors in that moment. Because that’s the least effective time to

Amy: I know.

Terumi: actually teach, and we forget that as adults.

Amy: Yes. And it’s always, at least for me, it’s always oh, immediately that’s, I’m like, we have to fix that right now. And it’s oh, not the time, it’s it. I don’t know if it’s human nature to just want to go exactly there or if it’s my personality or what, but yeah, it takes a lot of effort.

Terumi: wanna fix it. Wanna fix it right now?

Amy: Yeah.

Terumi: And we are frustrated. And they are frustrated and we use way too many words when they’re not in a space that their brain is comprehending a lot of words. So what we tend to do when we put in time sometimes is we flip back and forth between having the triangle.

Or look like a pyramid and having it inverted where we’re spending all our time correcting. We’ll figure out the empowering things and that connection comes last. And I tell parents the way you can tell where you’re at because we all do it and we all flip back and forth between them.

Amy: Yeah.

Terumi: But if you are frustrated as a parent.

If you are feeling like every interaction I have is correcting behavior, my hunch is you’ve inverted that pyramid

Amy: Yeah, that makes sense.

Terumi: and if you can go, I gotta flip it back, it starts with you as a parent going, I’ve gotta focus on that connection and I’ve gotta focus on positive interactions with my child. I had a child that at one point.

Was so struggling with his mental health that he literally did not leave our house more than five times over the course of a year and a half.

Amy: yeah. Wow.

Terumi: I struggled with that, and I struggled to connect with him because he was so withdrawn.

Amy: Yeah.

Terumi: There was a time when the most I could come up with was, thank you for showering.

You smell really nice today. And that was my feeble effort at connecting with that child. But when I started doing that every day, finding one way to connect with him,

Amy: Yeah.

Terumi: it flipped that relationship again. And he knew I had his back. I was on his site. And eventually it built where it was not hard to find things to be positive about, and it was easy to continue to build and to continue to empower him towards better mental health.

Amy: Yeah. No, I think every parent can relate to that and I always, anytime we’re talking. You know about parenting aspects, I’m always laughing in my head ’cause I’m like, oh, I have this kid who’s really easy to parent and this kid who’s really hard to parent. And it’s a personality conflict for some of us.

But ultimately it does. It comes back on us as the parents to find the ways to connect, to find the ways to take a deep breath and try again. And it’s hard. It’s hard as a parent.

Terumi: It is we are human and we get frustrated too but remembering, oh, wait, yes, I’m the adult in this situation, whether I wanna be or not right now.

Amy: There you go. That’s exactly right.

Terumi: I actually am the adult.

Amy: Yes. So tell us a little bit if people are not foster parents, is there a way that they can access this type of training

Terumi: Yes. There are multiple community resources. My healing home here in Salt Lake County offers it. They offer it statewide. You can look into Raise the Future, offers community classes as well, and. It’s also available online through TCU. So Texas Christian University has A-T-B-R-I 1 0 1 class that you can take there.

Additionally, TCU has put out multiple YouTube videos that’ll just give you. Brief glimpses into TBRI and some of these principles we’re starting to spread statewide in the number of what we call practitioners. People like myself who’ve been trained to teach TBRI and so it’s becoming more prevalently available in schools

Amy: Oh, that’s awesome.

Terumi: and in.

Therapy agencies and things like that. So it’s starting to spread, but raise future and my healing home are two that I would recommend

Amy: Okay. Yeah. That’s really good to know because I like, I had literally never even heard of this concept until I became a foster parent and. Then even still when I’ve told other people about it, I’ve had, once you become a foster parent, people think you’re like this all-knowing magical being, and it’s no, actually I’m just a human who signed up to do something really crazy, but thank you for that empowering comment.

But people will reach out, right? And be like, I have this difficult niece or nephew or, and it’s I’m not. Therapist I, anyways, so I think it’s great to know where we can refer people to, or if somebody’s listening that is not a foster parent, where are these resources that they can access?

Terumi: And now that you said that two books I’m gonna recommend, the connected child and the connected parent, and they are both based on TBRI principles by Karen Purvis.

Amy: Okay. That’s amazing. Yeah. So that just gives a little bit of a foundation and some options for people to go look at. I would love for you to chat a little bit about what the training’s like. To become A-T-B-R-I practitioner. I’ve talked to a few of the other people at Utah Foster Care who have gone through that, and I think it’s super fascinating.

So I don’t know if you have any I know that’s a random question, but I just found it really fascinating who just explained a little bit of what becoming a practitioner for it is and what it entails. And I would love if you’d be willing to share a little bit about that.

Terumi: It is rather intense. Apply for the opportunity to do it. I did it late in COVID, so my experience was entirely online, which is not the ideal way and is not the way they do it now. But they have, you do about 10 weeks of. Studying and deep diving into TBRI principles, and then they set up an appointment to do something called the adult attachment interview.

I told you earlier, we talk about attachment and different attachment styles with the adult attachment interview. This is a several hour process, one-on-one with an interviewer where they talk, have you talk about your childhood

Amy: Oh wow.

Terumi: and your parents, and. Their personalities. Your personalities, how, what worked, what didn’t what your memories are like.

And then at the end of that, they tell you what your attachment style is with each of your parents,

Amy: Oh, okay.

Terumi: because that then shows up in how you parent and how you interact. Other relationships, it can show up in romantic relationships. It can show up in parenting relationships. So that in and of itself is very intense.

Amy: do we all get one of those?

Terumi: They’re very expensive to do. That is not a random thing. You just click on online.

Amy: kidding, but how fascinating was it? So eye-opening to you

Terumi: very

Amy: and slightly horrifying. I think it would be like,

Terumi: Also.

Amy: wanna know that about myself.

Terumi: Yes. And it, it gave me deeper insight into some of the choices that I have made as an adult for good and bad.

Amy: Yeah. Wow. That’s really, yeah. That would be so interesting.

Terumi: And then after that there is a one week long intensive where you are in a training session with them nine to five for five days, and they move it around the country. I think they have one coming up in Las Vegas and wound up in Washington.

Amy: Okay.

Terumi: It’s a rather intense process and a lot of self discovery

Amy: yeah, I

Terumi: in figuring that out.

Amy: Wow. I just think that’s, it’s awesome and really neat to hear how intensive it is to become, to train this, because TBRI is not easy to do. It’s not like you’re gonna go into this class and then you’re like, wow, I am a spectacular parent. All of a sudden it, it takes. Effort. It takes a lot of effort and so I think even just becoming an educator in it, like it shows you took a lot of effort and a lot of time and probably a lot of soul searching to become qualified to, to teach it.

Terumi: Yes, absolutely.

Amy: You’re like, maybe I didn’t wanna do this.

Terumi: There were times where I was like, this felt like a really good idea.

Amy: Love that.

Terumi: It’s a lot. I look back now though, and it has done. A world of good to use these principles with my own children

in helping those relationships, in helping my marriage, in helping my relationships with my own siblings and my parents to just put things in context a little differently.

Amy: Yeah.

Terumi: It’s been amazing.

Amy: That’s so cool. I would love if you would be willing to share just one or two successes. You shared about one of the kids that lived with you, that was struggling with mental health, but do you have any other examples that could be mentioned either about your family or people you’ve worked with?

Anything? Just beautiful success stories from it.

Terumi: So one of the things that. We spend a lot of time talking about is sensory challenges because a lot of our kids in care have sensory challenges of a variety of kinds. They may be seeking sensory experiences, they may be trying to avoid certain sensory experiences. In the empowering principles, we talk about how we help kids calm their bodies, and some of it has to do with these sensory experiences.

Some of it has to do with making sure their blood sugar is at a regular level and making sure they’re not dehydrated rated. So it’s fun when I teach these classes and it’s once a week because parents are giving given an assignment. Go try. Something that we’ve taught this week and come back and tell us what worked, what didn’t work, and when there’s five or six of us doing this, we’re getting a whole bunch more ideas from each other.

One of the things was the blood sugar and hydration, and I said, make sure right after school they are getting a snack that’s going to help regulate their blood sugar and make sure they’re getting water.

Amy: Yeah.

Terumi: The next week curls around and a parent comes back and she said, I went and bought high protein snacks instead of the garbage.

I’d been

Amy: Yeah.

Terumi: being out for them to eat. And she said, it’s more expensive, but my kids every day are like, where is our special snacks?

Amy: I love it.

Terumi: And she said, all of those afterschool meltdowns that we were having went away. When they were getting fed and hydrated right after school because we walked through the process of what does a day look like at school?

When was the last time they

Amy: It’s true.

Terumi: When was the last time they moved their bodies? That’s probably around one o’clock, but they’re probably eating around 11 o’clock and you’re not seeing ’em until three.

Amy: Yeah.

Terumi: Or three 30. So they have gone four hours and we need to get something in them fast. And so now we have a lot of families that are keeping mini water bottles or their child’s water bottle in the car and some type of snack with them in the car.

So as they get in the car, they hand it to them.

Amy: Do not speak. Eat this.

Terumi: Or anyone can melt down. Please eat this food and drink this water and are coming back going. That was game changing.

Amy: And it’s so silly, right? Like I find that all the time. I have one specific child and he’s I’m sorry that I was hangry yesterday. He can’t even think straight. He’s losing his mind. And I’m like, let’s just get you some blah, blah, blah, going crazy. Finally the next day he’s i’m so hard.

Sorry that I was hangry. I’m like yes you were. Thank you for recognizing it now. But it is simple, but it really matters. It really does.

Terumi: it really does. And families have come back saying, okay, I’ve tried this. Oh, have you tried this particular type of water bottle? And it’s working with kids of all ages just to meet those really basic

Amy: Yeah.

Terumi: And being aware of those timeframes. Have they moved their body in the last two hours? Don’t make ’em sit down and do homework right after school until you’ve gotten a snack in them and they’ve moved their body

Amy: Yeah.

Terumi: because.

They’ve just been so pent up for so long. Sitting in a classroom, they are gonna struggle unless you get them hydrated, get their blood sugar, get meet those sensory needs if moving their body, it’s gonna go a whole lot smoother after school.

Amy: Yeah, and I think that’s what you were talking about with TBRI. There are tangible things to do. Do this, then do this and yes, it’s a lot of things, right? As a parent, we’re like we just wanna snap our fingers and have it magically work. But this is not that there’s no snapping of fingers, but there is actual steps and information and.

Things you can do, which I as a parent really appreciate because so many times it’s just do, just be a better parent and they’ll be better, so I really appreciate that aspect of TBRI.

Terumi: And I love, I truly, every time I teach it, I’m like, oh, I should try that too. My kids are all young adults now, but I still like.

Amy: probably even more reason to try it.

Terumi: We should go back and try this, or maybe in that next conversation I have with that child, I can do this to reconnect with them to help have influence. They’re young adults. I’m not gonna be changing their minds on certain things, but I can have influence still, and I’m still using these principles. I’m still.

Every time I take it, I learn something new and I try something new. And that’s the other thing that I’ve told parents every time they take the TBRI courses come back, you’re going to learn something new. You’re going to have a new insight with a different relationship. This is going to be helping you with

Amy: And relationships are always evolving and changing mean you always have stronger or weaker ones or new ones, so there’s always something that can be worked on with somebody. At least for me, this is just, there’s just so many options really.

Terumi: Exactly.

Amy: Oh, I love that. I have enjoyed taking the TBRI course.

I should absolutely take it again ’cause I’m in new stages of life and new things. But I really appreciate you sharing all of this information. It’s beyond helpful for listeners. Yeah.

Terumi: The opportunity.

Amy: Yes. No, it really is great. So we will just refer listeners to Utah foster care.org if they want to learn more or to sign up to take one of the courses.

Thanks for joining us, Terumi.

Terumi: Thank you.

Amy: Thanks for joining us for Fostering Conversations. I’m your host, Amy Smith. To learn more, head over to Utah foster care.org.