Tender.Services

A new article in Infant Mental Health Journal offers an important reminder:

Infants can show signs of post-traumatic stress long before they have words to tell us what they experienced.

While this study was not NICU-specific, its message is deeply relevant to infant care: early medical trauma, cumulative stress, separation, and caregiver distress can matter — and caregiving context matters too.

For those of us working in neonatal and perinatal care, this reinforces why trauma-informed developmental care cannot be seen as “extra.”

The infant’s experience matters.
The family’s experience matters.
The caregiving relationship matters.

Responsive, attuned, developmentally supportive care helps create safety where the nervous system is still learning what safety feels like.

This is the work.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/imhj.70015

Sometimes people hear about T.E.N.D.E.R. and think of education.
Education is part of what we do.
It is not the whole of what we do.
Our work is about helping healthcare teams move from awareness to action, and from concept to culture.
We help teams learn.
We help teams put knowledge into practice.
We help teams sustain change.
Through education, coaching, implementation support, and consulting, we work alongside organizations to build trauma-informed developmental care that can be sustained long after a workshop ends.
Because insight alone does not change culture.
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Parfois, lorsque les gens entendent parler de T.E.N.D.E.R., ils pensent d'abord à la formation.
La formation fait partie de ce que nous faisons.
Mais ce n'est qu'une partie de notre travail.
Nous aidons les équipes à passer de la compréhension à l'action, puis du concept à la culture.
Nous aidons les équipes à apprendre.
Nous aidons les équipes à appliquer leurs connaissances dans leur pratique clinique.
Nous aidons les équipes à soutenir et transformer leurs pratiques.
Grâce à la formation, au coaching, au soutien à l'implantation et à la consultation, nous accompagnons les organisations dans l'intégration durable des soins du développement axés sur la prévention du traumatisme.
Parce que la compréhension seule ne transforme pas une culture.

We are honoured to be presenting at GOLD Neonatal 2026 this summer.

Our presentation explores how light, sound, sensory experiences, pacing, and relational care influence stress, regulation, healing, and neurodevelopment in the NICU.

Join us June 15, 2026 at 1300 EST

https://www.goldneonatal.com/

At T.E.N.D.E.R., we often speak about trauma-informed care as something lived, embodied, and relational.

That is part of why this feels meaningful to share.

Our own Chantel Morin has been quietly working on a memoir that reflects the lived experience beneath so much of the trauma-informed lens she brings to this work.

Trauma-Informed Me: Finding My Light

A deeply personal story of prematurity, loss, caregiving, survival, motherhood, nursing, and becoming.

It is still in progress, but it is becoming real.
And that feels worth sharing.

Aujourd’hui, Isabelle Milette anime notre Programme de formation en soins du développement (P.F.S.D.©) en français, portant sur les soins du développement axés sur la prévention du traumatisme, la neuroprotection, la co-régulation et les soins néonataux centrés sur la famille.

Fondée sur les lignes directrices canadiennes et internationales actuelles, cette formation aide les professionnels de la santé à mieux comprendre le stress, la régulation, le soutien au développement et les soins relationnels auprès des bébés prématurés et vulnérables ainsi que leurs familles.

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Today, Isabelle Milette is leading our French Professional Training Program in Developmental Care (P.F.S.D.©), focused on trauma-informed developmental care, neuroprotection, co-regulation, and family-centered neonatal practice.

Grounded in current Canadian and international guidelines, this program helps healthcare professionals better understand stress, regulation, developmental support, and relational care for premature and medically fragile infants and their families.

We’re honoured to share this conversation on the Timeless Topics podcast featuring Chantel Morin, co-founder of T.E.N.D.E.R. Services.

In this episode, the conversation explores presence vs performance, distrust in healthcare, standards of care, safe relationships, and accountability — themes that sit close to the heart of trauma-informed, relational care.

We’re grateful for the opportunity to bring the T.E.N.D.E.R. lens into this important discussion.

We are incredibly excited to share that we will be presenting a workshop at the 2026 World Congress of the World Association for Infant Mental Health in Toronto this October.

Our workshop:
From Surviving to Thriving: Bringing Trauma-Informed Developmental Care to Life in the NICU
will explore how trauma-informed developmental care can move from concept to everyday practice — supporting regulation, connection, neuroprotection, and relational safety for babies, families, and healthcare providers in neonatal care settings.

This work is deeply meaningful to us, and we are honoured to be part of a global conversation focused on infant mental health, relationships, healing, and the earliest foundations of development.

We cannot wait to connect, learn, and share alongside colleagues from around the world.

See you in Toronto. 🍁

Le 15 mai, c’est la Journée mondiale du peau à peau.
Le peau à peau est souvent décrit comme un moment relationnel — et c’est vrai.
Mais c’est aussi beaucoup plus que ça.
Le contact peau à peau soutient la stabilité physiologique, la co-régulation, l’attachement et la confiance des parents. Il aide à atténuer le stress et soutient le développement du système nerveux des bébés prématurés et vulnérables.
En unités néonatales axées sur la prévention du traumatisme, les parents ne sont pas des visiteurs.
Ils font partie des soins, de l’équipe.
Leur présence compte.
Leur toucher compte.
Leur amour compte.
La proximité n’est pas un extra ou un qqc de superflu.
Elle fait partie intégrante des soins.

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May 15 is World Kangaroo Care Day.

Kangaroo care is often described as bonding — and it is.
But it is also so much more.

Skin-to-skin care supports physiologic stability, co-regulation, attachment, and parent confidence. It helps buffer stress and supports the developing nervous system of premature and medically fragile infants.

In trauma-informed neonatal care, we do not see parents as visitors waiting at the edge of care.

We see them as part of the care.

Their presence matters.
Their touch matters.
Their relationship matters.

Closeness is not extra.
It is clinical care.

For National Nursing Week, we want to honour not only what nurses do, but what they carry.
Nurses hold clinical complexity, emotional labour, family questions, competing priorities, alarms, uncertainty, and the pressure to keep moving.
In neonatal care, nurses are often the ones translating trauma-informed care into the smallest everyday moments.
How a baby is touched.
How a parent is included.
How care is paced.
How distress is noticed.
How safety is felt.
This work is skilled.
It is relational.
It is clinical.
And it deserves systems that support it.


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À l’occasion de la Semaine nationale des soins infirmiers, nous souhaitons rendre hommage non seulement à ce que font les infirmières, mais aussi à ce qu’elles portent en elles.

Les infirmières doivent gérer la complexité clinique, le travail émotionnel, les questions familiales, les priorités contradictoires, les alarmes, l’incertitude et la pression de toujours aller de l’avant.

En soins néonatals, ce sont souvent les infirmières qui traduisent les soins axés sur la prévention du traumatisme dans les plus petits gestes du quotidien.

La manière dont on touche un bébé.
La manière dont on implique un parent.
Le rythme des soins.
La manière dont on perçoit la détresse.
La façon dont le sentiment de sécurité est ressenti.

Ce travail exige des compétences.
Il est relationnel.
Il est clinique.
Et il mérite des systèmes qui le soutiennent.