Christine Rae Dorris
Curriculum Developer · Parent Education · Family Support
“What gets lost when the record becomes more powerful than the person it describes?”
Two lanes, one field
I write about reproductive mental health, child welfare, family systems, recovery, and policy — and I provide non-clinical family support within the same territory.
Writing + Media
- Freelance writing
- Feature articles
- Personal essays
- Research-informed writing
- Behavioral-health and nonprofit content
- Educational and training materials
- Commissioned writing
- Speaking
- Podcast, television, and media appearances
- Editorial collaboration
Rooted in Connection™
- One-on-one parenting sessions
- Virtual Zoom parenting support
- Parent education
- Family coaching
- Caregiver regulation support
- Safety planning
- Resource navigation
- Visit coaching
- Supervised visitation where appropriate
- Parent-child connection and practical skill building
- Structured curriculum-based support
Rooted in Connection™ provides non-clinical family support and education. It does not provide psychotherapy, diagnosis, medical treatment, or legal services. The purpose is to complement — not replace — clinical care.
Explore RIC ServicesWriting, research & practice
Books, frameworks, research, and curriculum built across the same field.
Almost Made It
Christine Dorris spent her career inside the child welfare system — as a parent educator, a provider, and an advocate for families most likely to fall through its cracks. She knew the language, the paperwork, the rhythms. Then the system opened a file on her.
Almost Made It is written from both sides of that divide: the professional who understands exactly what the system is doing, and the mother living inside it anyway. It is a book about PMDD, addiction, grief, and what it means to document when documentation is the only power you have left.
It is not a book about being broken. It is a book about what you do with everything you know when the system you know turns toward you.
Contains descriptions of addiction, suicidal ideation, and pregnancy loss.
Vignette I — The Body Knew
From You Should Have Been Kind To Me.
At first, her body welcomed him.
That’s the part nobody talks about. That it was good once. That she wanted it once. That she reached for him first—sometimes.
Her body knew him. Trusted him. Opened the way it was supposed to.
And then something shifted. Not all at once. Not in a single moment she could name. It was erosion. Slow. Consistent. Quiet. The way water doesn’t break a rock in one strike—but changes it completely over time.
It showed up in small ways first. The way he reached for her when she was already tired. Already hollowed out. Already somewhere behind her own eyes. The way his hands felt different. Less like want. More like expectation. The questions stopped being questions.
Her body knew before her mind did. Because that is how the body works. The mind is slow. It explains. It negotiates. It builds cases. It stays loyal to a story it has already decided to believe.
But the body has no interest in stories. The body only knows what is true right now.
She thought something was wrong with her.
Nothing was wrong with her. Everything was working exactly as it was designed to.
We can’t keep criminalizing mental health. There must be another solution.
Non-clinical family support, parent education & prevention
Rooted in Connection™ LLC is a Montana-based, trauma-informed family support and prevention organization founded by Christine Rae Dorris. It is registered with the Montana Secretary of State and in good standing.
RIC works in the practical space around therapy and formal systems. Clinical providers address clinical treatment. RIC helps families carry regulation, parenting, safety, and treatment goals into everyday life.
Rooted in Connection™ provides non-clinical family support and education. It does not provide psychotherapy, diagnosis, medical treatment, or legal services. The purpose is to complement — not replace — clinical care.
Parenting SessionsNurturing Parenting
I am a Nurturing Parenting Facilitator. Nurturing Parenting is a parent-education framework — not mental-health treatment.
ARC-Informed
My work is informed by Attachment, Regulation, and Competency principles. This is ARC-informed parent education, not ARC therapy or clinical treatment.
Trauma-Informed
- Attachment
- Co-regulation and caregiver regulation
- Routines and predictability
- Developmental understanding
- Communication and boundaries
- Repair after conflict
- Safety planning
- Protective factors and family stability
One-on-one parenting support
Practical, structured, educational, and nonjudgmental. Sessions may be provided virtually through Zoom.
Sessions are built around what a family is actually carrying week to week — not around a diagnosis or a treatment plan.
- Parenting education
- Regulation strategies
- Strengthening parent-child connection
- Routines and structure
- Understanding behavior
- Practical safety planning
- Resource navigation
- Implementing goals between professional appointments
- Preparing for or improving parent-child visits
- Rebuilding consistency following family disruption
Services
Non-clinical education and family support, delivered in person in the Billings area and virtually by Zoom where appropriate.
One-on-one parenting support
Individual sessions built around what a family is carrying week to week.
Parent education
Structured, curriculum-based education drawing on Nurturing Parenting.
Virtual Zoom sessions
Remote sessions where distance, schedule, or circumstance makes them the better fit.
Visit coaching
Preparation, practical skills, and follow-up around parent-child visits.
Supervised visitation
Provided where appropriate and within a defined caseload.
Family support & navigation
Help locating and following through on services already in place.
Caregiver regulation & safety planning
Practical regulation strategies and written plans for hard weeks.
Curriculum-based education
The Rooted in Connection™ workbook, delivered individually or in groups.
Approach
I am a Nurturing Parenting Facilitator. Nurturing Parenting is a parent-education framework, not mental-health treatment.
My practice is ARC-informed — informed by Attachment, Regulation, and Competency principles. This is parent education informed by those principles, not ARC therapy or clinical treatment.
Please do not include confidential medical, legal, or child-welfare records in an initial website inquiry. We can arrange a secure way to share documents if it becomes relevant.
Rooted in Connection™ does not provide emergency or crisis response. If you are in immediate danger, call 911. In the United States, the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline can be reached by call or text at 988.
Common questions
Is Rooted in Connection therapy?
No. Rooted in Connection™ provides non-clinical education and family support. It does not provide psychotherapy, diagnosis, medical treatment, or legal services, and it is intended to complement — not replace — clinical care.
Are sessions available virtually?
Yes, where appropriate, through Zoom.
Who can inquire?
Parents, caregivers, organizations, professionals, and referral partners.
Can therapists or organizations refer someone?
Yes. Inquiries and professional collaboration are welcome — see For professionals.
How are services paid for?
Private-pay and organizational arrangements may be available. Online payment functionality is being developed; for now, inquiries are handled by email.
For professionals
Therapists, agencies, attorneys, family-service organizations, recovery programs, and other community providers are welcome to inquire.
RIC works alongside clinical and legal providers rather than in place of them, and is happy to coordinate where a family is already connected to services.
- Referrals
- Parent education
- Family-support collaboration
- Curriculum
- Sponsored services
- Organizational contracts
Fairy Garden Month
Every April, for Child Abuse Prevention Month, families come together and build fairy gardens. One garden per family. Theirs to take home.
It is a build-together experience, not a class. An afternoon to sit beside your child and make something small — moss, stone, tiny doors, hidden paths.
Prevention work does not always look like prevention work. Sometimes it looks like a family putting down their phones for two hours to build something together. Made possible by the Montana Children's Trust Fund.
The newsletter
A monthly letter on what the work actually looks like — the field, the writing, and what is being built next.
August 2026 covered a new post in the field as a Harm Reduction Specialist and Narcan trainer, a proposal for Family Continuity Planning in Yellowstone County, a news crew in the living room, and a reading group being set for January.
To subscribe, email me and I will add you to the list.
Subscribe
Sessions & payment
Online booking is not active yet. Inquiries are handled by email until checkout is connected.
Parent education package
[DETAILS TO BE ADDED]
[PRICE TO BE ADDED]The 28 Day Project
A longitudinal, cycle-anchored method for documenting what a single encounter may not capture.
Parenting capacity is often assessed in snapshots — a fifteen-minute visit, a home walkthrough, one hard afternoon written into a file. Capacity is not a snapshot.
PMDD can produce cyclical changes in functioning that may be difficult to capture in a single encounter. The 28 Day Project is being developed to document functioning, safety, caregiving impact, barriers, protective actions, and return to baseline across the menstrual cycle.
The framework is in active development alongside a working log and a research synthesis on luteal-phase vulnerability under compounding stress.
Materials are available on request for clinical, curriculum, and research contexts. Case-level documentation is not published here.
Tracks
Cuts and demos made alongside the writing.
The Room Without a Sky
The 4:44 track with its lyrics in sync. Headphones recommended; contains rhythmic flashing light, with controls to reduce it.
All six tracks are built into this file and play anywhere, online or off.
Christine Rae Dorris
I write from an unusual vantage point: I spent years working with children and families before finding myself on the other side of many of the same systems I had worked within.
That shift changed the questions I ask. My work examines PMDD, trauma, parenting, harm reduction, court and child-welfare systems, documentation, accountability, and the difference between recognizing risk and reducing a person to their worst moment.
I am currently pursuing a Bachelor of Social Work and building a long-term research trajectory focused on PMDD, parenting capacity, child welfare, prevention, and policy reform.
I am the author of Almost Made It, a memoir about what happens when private crisis becomes public record — and how much of a human life can disappear between what happened and what ultimately gets documented.
Almost Made It
A memoir about what happens when private crisis becomes public record — and how much of a human life can disappear between what happened and what ultimately gets documented.
You Should Have Been Kind To Me
A research memoir in twenty-four chapters.
Education, training & practice
Rooted in Connection™ is a non-clinical practice. Nothing listed here constitutes a clinical licence.
Education
Training
Practice & professional roles
For editors and producers
Recent appearances. Interview and reprint requests go through email.
Topics
Subjects I can speak to on air, on a panel, or in a classroom.
- PMDD and reproductive mental health
- When clinical context disappears from the record
- Parenting capacity beyond a crisis snapshot
- Child welfare and family systems
- Recovery and harm reduction
- Trauma-informed family support
- Memoir, documentation, and the counter-record
- Almost Made It
Media kit
Materials for editors, producers, and event organizers.
Short bio
Christine Rae Dorris is an author, freelance writer, curriculum developer, and founder of Rooted in Connection™ LLC. Her work lives where reproductive mental health, family systems, child welfare, recovery, and public policy collide. She is the author of the memoir Almost Made It.
Full professional bio
Available on request.
Headshot
High-resolution files available on request.
Almost Made It cover
Print-resolution cover art available on request.
Speaker & interview topics
Listed above under Topics.
Media appearances
Listed under Press & media.
Materials
Rooted in Connection™ workbook
A trauma-informed parenting workbook used in one-on-one and curriculum-based sessions. Previews available to professionals and organizations on request.
The 28 Day Project
A working framework in development. Materials are available on request for clinical, curriculum, and research contexts. Case-level documentation is not published here.
Newsletter archive
The most recent issue is published under The newsletter. Back issues on request.
More materials coming.
Two ways to work together
Writing, media & speaking
Freelance assignments, commissioned writing, speaking, media, and collaborations involving reproductive mental health, family systems, child welfare, recovery, and policy.
Work With MeParenting & family services
Parenting sessions, parent education, visit coaching, and family support through Rooted in Connection™. Non-clinical. Virtual sessions available.
Inquire About ServicesSend an enquiry
Please do not include confidential medical, legal, or child-welfare records in an initial inquiry. Rooted in Connection™ does not provide emergency or crisis response; if you are in immediate danger call 911, or call or text 988 for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.