Conscious Care Cards bring mental health tools to families

THE GORGE — Families in the Gorge will soon have access to a new resource designed to strengthen parent-child relationships and support mental health.

Conscious Care Cards, developed by Karen A. Green, provide caregivers with simple, research-based activities to help children build resilience and emotional well-being. The cards use strategies rooted in attachment theory, which emphasizes the importance of caregiver-child bonds.

“I’ve been developing it for about 25 years in my clinical experience, and it will launch Nov. 1,” Green said.

Green, a tenured professor and director of an associate’s program in mental health, has decades of experience as an educator and clinician for children and families. She has also been recognized with a Distinguished Teacher Award.

“It’s really fulfilling a need,” Green said. “Parents need help talking about emotions so they can develop their child’s emotional intelligence.”

She also pointed to shrinking school budgets, saying “social emotional learning is being taken out of schools just because of funding.”

The concept for the cards dates back to 1999, when Green began jotting down short, five-minute activities on scraps of paper to give to parents of young students she was helping. Each activity was backed by neuroscience and attachment theory, offering the parents easy ways to connect with their children. Families told her the exercises felt simple to follow, almost like a script.

Over time, Green collected more than 400 activities, which she kept in spiral notebooks. Recently, she partnered with an artist to create a designed box set. Her goal, she said, was to make the activities easy, fun and appealing to children — while centering them on what kids most want: connection.

The cards are currently available for pre-order, with shipments expected in November. As part of the pre-sale, all early purchasers will receive lifetime access to the online Conscious Care Cards Community — a benefit valued at $399 — at no additional cost and be considered a founding member. 

She says “the bond you have with your kid now is going to predict your child’s future,” and adds that the parent-child bond can determine factors such as mental illness, addiction, joblessness and more.  

The box set is designed to give parents “research-backed tools.” According to Green, they can practice utilizing the cards for years to come, offering a lower-cost alternative to therapy. “The box set I have found is often cheaper than a few hours of therapy.” In addition to the box set, families can join a parent forum for $19 a month. The membership includes 72 guided video tutorials, a private online community for caregivers and pop-in support from Green herself.

“It’s like having a therapist in your back pocket,” she says. She added that the resources can also help parents “reparent themselves.”

More information about Conscious Care Cards, including pre-order details, is available at consciouscarecards.com.