About
Who we are
The Karyn Purvis Institute of Child Development (KPICD) at TCU is a program of the Department of Psychology in the TCU College of Science & Engineering in Fort Worth, Texas. We’re also the home of Trust-Based Relational Intervention® (TBRI®), an internationally recognized model for addressing the needs of children who have experienced trauma.
Our History
This institute, and the now globally recognized TBRI model, started with a mother going back to school.
After sending her sons to college, Karyn Purvis enrolled in TCU to complete her undergraduate degree and later pursue a Ph.D. in child development. Research for her thesis led Karyn and her advisor, Dr. David Cross, to host a summer camp for adopted children, using Karyn’s childcare instincts combined with the established principles in neuroscience and attachment theory taught in the TCU program. That first camp in 1999 saw such dramatic improvements in the children that their parents clamored for more help.
In 2005, TCU formally created the TCU Institute of Child Development to advance the work of Dr. Purvis and Dr. Cross. Over the next decade, they wrote their acclaimed book, The Connected Child – now required reading in many foster and adoption programs nationwide – and created a holistic, research-based approach to healing vulnerable children, called Trust-Based Relational Intervention (TBRI), which is now practiced in more than 60 countries.
After Dr. Purvis’ death in 2016, TCU renamed the institute in her honor.
Our Founders
Dr. Karyn Purvis
1949-2016
Former Rees-Jones Director of the TCU Institute for Child Development
Known as a thorough researcher, an authoritative speaker, and a “child whisperer,” Karyn Purvis had a heart and instinct for helping others from her earliest days. As a child, she took in stray and wounded animals; helped her father, the mayor of their town, distribute food to migrant workers in slums; and helped her mother care for the sick and elderly in their neighborhood. As a teenager, she mentored at-risk children at school and trained horses. Karyn later became a pastor’s wife and worked with her husband to start a ministry for street kids while raising their own sons.
At age 47, Karyn returned to college at TCU to finish her undergrad; at 53, she earned her Ph.D., and by 56 was head of the new TCU Institute for Child Development.
In just over a decade under her leadership, the message and teachings of the Purvis Institute increased exponentially. She taught and inspired tens of thousands of parents, professionals and political leaders around the world.
Her passion and insight led to interviews and coverage in local and national publications including Newsweek, Dateline NBC and countless others. Her several honors include a Distinguished Fellow in Adoption and Child Development from The National Council on Adoption, the James Hammerstein Award, the T. Berry Brazelton award for Infant Mental Health Advocacy, and a Health Care Hero award from the Dallas Business Journal.
“If I could tell you my dream for every child in the world it would be to imagine a world where the cry of every child is met by a loving compassionate adult,” she once told an interviewer. “Giving voice to children is the heart and soul of what we do.”
Dr. David Cross
Former Rees-Jones Director of the Karyn Purvis Institute of Child Development at TCU
Dr. David Cross is the former Rees-Jones Director of the Karyn Purvis Institute of Child Development and is a retired professor in the TCU Department of Psychology. From 2016 to 2022, Dr. Cross led the Purvis Institute in its triple mission of research, education and outreach to improve the lives of children who have experienced abuse, neglect, and other forms of trauma. He has authored many peer-reviewed publications about issues regarding at-risk children.
Dr. Cross earned his B.S. from California State University Fresno with a major in psychology; then two M.A.s, in Psychology and in Statistics, and a Ph.D. in Education and Psychology, from The University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. In 1985, he accepted a position as Assistant Professor in TCU’s Department of Psychology.
Dr. Cross taught many TCU courses including Case Studies in Child Development, Generalized Linear Models, and Graduate Developmental Psychology. He retired from TCU in 2022. You can learn more about Dr. Cross’s leadership and legacy through his blog posts and episodes of the TBRI® Podcast.