Unlock the Power
of Heart-Centered
Connections
Explore meaningful ways to nurture stronger bonds with your child.
Who We Are
The Place for Natural Connections (PNC) is a research-informed network dedicated to strengthening parent-child relationships through everyday caregiving routines. We promote the positive benefits of daily practices, such as combing hair, as opportunities for parents to connect with their children, culture, and community with humor, sensitivity, and unconditional acceptance.
Through culturally centered parent groups, educational programs, community workshops, and coaching partnerships with schools, hospitals, and community agencies, PNC builds social support, increases parental self-efficacy, and helps families address the impact of intergenerational messages about colorism. Grounded in rigorous research and delivered through replicable, community-based curricula, PNC provides training, guidance, and ongoing support to create lasting, heart-centered connections across communities.
Embrace the Power of the 24-Hour Cycle
Our flagship program, Talk, Touch, and Listen™ While Combing Hair, transforms a simple daily routine into a powerful pathway for parent-child connection. Grounded in research, the program highlights how talk, nurturing touch, and attentive listening during hair-combing interactions strengthen brain development, emotional health, and secure attachment.
We call this Embrace the Power of 24.
Every moment in your childcare routine is an opportunity to build trust, love, and understanding. With 4,380 chances each year to Talk, Touch & Listen™, you can create lasting connections that strengthen your relationship with your child while honoring your culture and community.
This parent-focused program provides resources, tools, strategies, and community to make every interaction count and foster heart-centered connections that will resonate for a lifetime.
Meet the Founder
Marva L. Lewis, PH.D, IMHM-E®
Associate Professor at Tulane University
Dr. Marva L. Lewis is a renowned researcher and educator specializing in the rituals and routines of hair-combing interactions and their impact on parent-infant attachment relationships, with a focus on addressing colorism. She provides national training and consultation on critical topics, including:
Early Relational Health
Implicit Bias
Historical Trauma of Slavery
Racial Disparities in Child-Serving Systems
Dr. Lewis combines her extensive academic knowledge with practical strategies to empower families, professionals, and communities.
Addressing the Need:
Tools for Connection and Healing
To nurture thriving families and foster resilient communities, we believe it is essential to strengthen connection by:
Developing culturally grounded theories and psychosocial tools to strengthen parent-child attachment relationships and foster parental self-efficacy.
Disrupting harmful intergenerational narratives of acceptance and rejection based on skin color and hair type, promoting unconditional love and inclusion.
Equiping social workers and Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health (IECMH) professionals with practical, relationship-centered tools to support families navigating stress, separation, and loss.
GROWING CONNECTIONS TO CHILD, FAMILY, CULTURE & COMMUNITY
The Power of Family Routines and Rituals
Family routines and rituals are powerful anchors in family life, especially during challenging times like the COVID-19 pandemic. They provide stability, foster connection, and protect mental health under high-stress conditions by creating order and predictability.
Everyday Routines Can Help Families:
Enhance Cognitive Skills: Encourage learning and problem-solving through structured activities.
Reinforce Values-Based Behaviors: Teach roles, rules, and responsibilities that align with family values.
Expand Emotional Vocabulary: Foster emotional intelligence by naming and discussing feelings.
Model Positive Communication: Use clear and intentional words to guide behaviors and strengthen relationships.
Build Adaptability and Resilience: Develop the skills to navigate change and recover from setbacks.
With intention and consistency, routines and rituals can transform everyday moments into opportunities for growth, connection, and emotional well-being.
The Power of 10 Minutes a Day
+
+
= 4,380 Opportunities to:
Talk , Touch & Listen™
Each moment builds connection, trust, and love.
Dr. Marva Lewis“Hair combing interaction can play a key role in establishing secure attachments.
Findings from my research suggest that this simple task, which takes only around 10 minutes per day, facilitates some core parenting behaviors that lead to more secure attachments: positive verbal interaction, loving physical touch and responsive listening.”
Power at its best, is love implementing the demands of justice. Justice at its best, is love correcting everything that stands against love.”
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1967)