MIM is delivered by Child Development Institute in Toronto, and through a number of licensed Affiliates throughout Ontario. If you are interested in referring a client to MIM, please find the location closest to your client and contact the agency directly.
Interested in becoming a MIM Affiliate? Check out the FAQ below to learn more.
Mothers in Mind (MIM) is designed specifically to meet the parenting needs of women parenting children under the age of four who have experienced violence and trauma, such as family violence, childhood abuse and neglect and sexual assault.
At first glance, MIM looks like any other mother-child play group: mothers play with their children and have group discussions. The uniqueness of MIM lies in the content of those discussions. Within the comfort and safety of the group, women are able to discuss the impact trauma has had on their parenting – how they feel triggered when they breastfeed their baby, how their toddler’s tantrum reminds them of their abuser, and how hugging their child doesn’t always feel good are discussions that occur regularly in MIM.
These conversations are necessary for healing, but many women don’t feel comfortable talking about these issues in regular parenting groups.
The focus of the program is to intervene early in the lives of young children and their mothers in order to strengthen parent-child relationships, enhance parenting skills and reduce parenting stress.
A MIM Affiliate is an organization that is licensed to deliver MIM. To become a MIM Affiliate, you will enter into a formalized licensing agreement with Child Development Institue that includes assessing site readiness, on-going training and consultation and a regulated quality assurance process.
Well-developed training and support materials are available for MIM Affiliates. As part of the licensing agreement, Affiliates participate in the Mothers in Mind Two-Day Core Training. All staff facilitating MIM must be trained by CDI. Once training is completed a consultation strategy is established for future years.
Direct costs:
Ongoing Program Costs
Lisa Sura, MSW, RSW
Senior Clinical Program Lead
Child Development Institute
197 Euclid Ave
Toronto, ON M6J 2J8
416-603-1827 ext. 2218
416-603-6655 (fax)
lsura@childdevelop.ca
Disclaimer: The Child Development Institute is committed to meeting the requirements of the provincial Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2005 (AODA) and is currently working to ensure the content on this website complies with the legislation. Should you require information in a format that is not currently available, please contact us at info@childdevelop.ca or 416-603-1827.
Land Acknowledgement: We acknowledge that the land on which we work is the traditional territory of many nations including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee, the Wendat, and the Métis peoples. We also acknowledge that Toronto is covered by Treaty 13 with the Mississaugas of the Credit. Our community is home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples and recognize the enduring presence of Indigenous Peoples on this land.