Anne R. Gearity Ph.D., LICSW

Dr. Anne Gearity has a mental health practice in Minneapolis and is on the clinical faculty of the University of Minnesota Department of Child Psychiatry, School of Social Work and Post-graduate Certificate Program for Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health. Dr. Gearity designed and wrote Developmental Repair with colleagues at the Washburn Center for Children. Developmental Repair is an intervention model for at risk children with complex trauma; however, it is being used in many settings as a guide to a changing paradigm for working with children. In addition to mental health work, she is also consulting extensively with schools and child welfare to promote a parallel shift.

Dr. Gearity’s keynote speech, What Constitutes Kindness – and Why Do We Lose It so Often?, will address how at risk children and adolescents need adults to regulate stress, to make sense of experiences and to move towards better adaptation. Adults who work with vulnerable children must develop reflective capacity: the ability to see the child’s point of view. But there is one step more: to assure that all of our interventions are delivered with a foundation of kindness.