The First Years

Bruce Perry stands at the back of the room, waiting for people to settle down before the lecture.
Despite the fact that he claims to be very shy, he laughs genially, and chats with a reporter about the Newfoundland weather. It's snowing outside and he's surprised so many people showed up.
As he settles into a relaxed ramble about the snow where he grew up, and the snow here, and the lack of snow in Texas where he lives now, a group of middle-aged ladies approach with eager looks on their faces.
But Perry doesn't see them; he's still talking about the snow, so the ladies wait patiently.
Finally, he stops talking for a second, and notices the ladies. They want to get their books autographed.
The lead woman laughs self-consciously, "I feel like a groupie."
In the world of neurobiology and infant mental health, Perry is that kind of big deal.
He's a clinical researcher working with children who have suffered trauma or neglect, and studies the effects that has on their brains. What he's found out has made a big splash in certain circles.
He's he's testified before U.S. Congress. He's published more than 300 scientific papers. He's even been on Oprah.
And tonight, he's here in St. John's to talk to people about the message that makes him so famous: babies are really, really important.

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After everyone settles in, Perry starts his presentation, and it's easy to see why people go so ga ga over him. He's a phenomenal speaker - funny and passionate, affable and intelligent. Sometimes, when he talks about the horrible things that happen to children, he's bitterly angry, other times he's hopeful and inspiring.
He talks about how malleable children's brains are before the age of three, and how nurturing them will lead to lifelong success. He says that by the time a child turns three, most of the capacity for their brain to change is gone.
He talks about the deficit of attention most children get. Humans evolved in small tribes where there were four adults for every child under six. Today, the very best preschools have one adult for every four children.
He has slides that show neglected brains next to normal brains. He talks about how much money we spend on at-risk kids after they grow up: income assistance, social programs, the justice system. The government spends a million dollars on an at-risk youth before they turn 18.
According to Perry, if we put more funding into raising babies right, we save nine dollars for every one we spend.
"Our challenge, in this room, is to make the people who fund public systems understand the importance of early childhood," he says.
This is his basic message to the audience. We live in a democracy, and it's a lot easier to subsidize farmers than it is to subsidize babies, but citizens need to stand up and make politicians realize how important this is.

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Perry was brought to St. John's by Gemma, a charity devoted to infant mental health issues.
"Wherever we live in the community, we need to be paying attention to what's happening to children," says Melba Rabinowitz, chairwoman of Gemma.
According to Rabinowitz, infant mental health is a relatively new concept in Newfoundland, and Perry's visit will help raise awareness.
"It's a new term here, but we think it's important for people to realize that infant mental health starts at birth," she says. "If we smarten up a do something early on, we can do something about it."
To promote the issue, Gemma has organized a whole conference around his 24-hour whirlwind visit. Tuesday night is a free lecture for the public, Wednesday morning is a seminar for front line child and community service workers. Then, after Perry leaves on Wednesday afternoon, everyone sits down for a "facilitated discussion," and from thatGemma will write up a report with recommendations to be implemented.
Rabinowitz says she hopes Perry's visit is the catalyst for a change in the way Newfoundland supports its infants.

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Wednesday morning's seminar has a different bent.
The message is still basically the same, but gone are the references to democracy and citizens bringing about change.
He knows he's talking to front-line workers and professionals, so this time his message is a bit more basic: neurobiology is the way to understand infant development.
"It shouldn't be surprising to anyone who understands the biology of the human brain that our current therapeutic techniques are not good," Perry says. He describes his talk as an infomercial for the neruodevelopmental perspective.
Perry uses more jargon, talking about how to "modulate impulsivity," and "cognitive behavioural interactions."
But at it's core, he's just saying that his neurobiological research shows one thing: with a lot of patience and hard work, you can fix a messed up six-year-old, but if you support him when he's born, you won't have to.

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After Perry finishes his talk and leaves everyone breaks for lunch. When they re-congregate, they settle into a room with lots of round tables big flip charts. These are social service and health-care workers from across the province, and they're ready to figure out how to make the province a better place.
Before they get started, Ken Barter, a researcher in child welfare and social work at MUN, steps up and shares his reflections from the morning's talk.
"How much longer do we need to keep hearing the same things over and over?" Barter asks. "We have to come to grips. A great deal of what we're doing is not working."
That's the horrible subtext that's been left largely unsaid. The underlying message of Perry's research is this: we're doing things wrong, and it's hurting our children.
Perry's research isn't new. He's been delivering this message for more than a decade.
Barter asks, "Do we act on the knowledge we have?"
And then people get down to work, and start discussing.

jamespmcleod@gmail.com