Our Founders

In 2011, Serena Wieder, Cuong Do, Monica Osgood, and Ricki Robinson co-founded Profectum Foundation, inspired by their shared passion for the DIR® Model co-created by Profectum’s Serena Wieder. Supported by many clinicians and educators, Profectum's Co-Founders launched developmental training and education programs that would increase the number of DIR® practitioners and provide them with the tools they needed to maximize their impact.
Guided by the Co-Founders’ leadership and vision, Profectum has grown its influence and scope, further developing the DIR® Model. Profectum quickly gathered an unparalleled Faculty, whose expertise and experience lead the field.

The Co-Founders carefully developed Profectum's hallmark programs, which have continued to evolve as the DIR® Model grows and thrives. From training and conferences grew international programs, masterclasses and parent initiatives, including the Profectum Parent Toolbox, serving thousands of practitioners, educators and parents across the world.

Profectum gratefully acknowledges the dedication, commitment, expertise, energy and resources that Serena, Cuong, Monica and Ricki have generously and unendingly provided to the organization to bring us to the current moment. Their relentless pursuit of helping more families and more practitioners is an inspiration to us all, and we can never thank them enough for the extraordinary gift they gave the world in founding Profectum.
Profectum means progress but I also think of it as the “promise” that takes our children into the future, with intervention that optimizes potential when development is neurodiverse or impeded. Founding Profectum gave DIR® training a home for a pioneering relational model that integrates the multiple facets of the developing child across the lifespan. Each is unique in their minds, hearts and emotions, and neurobiology.  Interactive affective relationships between children, parents, and caregivers that is attuned to culture and environment activate development. For myself and at Profectum, this means joining the child’s and family’s journey, as partners with parents, holding hope, anxiety, and joy as we find the pathways to lives of meaning, purpose and emotional well being. I see development as discovery with its own timetable. As co-creator of the DIR® model, I am ever so grateful to Profectum’s Co-Founders, and all our colleagues who learn with us and train others to carry out our mission to find the promise in every child and presume competencies here and around the world.

Serena Wieder, PhD
Co-Founder, Co-Creator of the DIR® Model
In 2011, I started Profectum to create a home for talented clinicians working with the DIR® model to continue their work. I believe that no single intervention approach can work by itself, so I worked closely with the Profectum faculty to create the Foundational Capacities for Development (FCD) model. I am proud of what we have achieved and look forward to the continued success of Profectum and the DIR® model.

Cuong Do
Co-Founder
Beginning in the early 90s, I was given the extraordinary gift of working closely with Drs. Stanley Greenspan and Serena Wieder who instilled in me my love for our DIR® model. In 2011, I was honored to co-found the Profectum Foundation under the leadership and direction of Cuong Do. My passion for raising awareness of the DIR® model, providing the highest quality training programs, and continuing to evolve the model in collaboration with the talented Profectum Faculty compelled me to take on the role of founding Executive Director for Profectum’s first decade. My passion is working with students, caregivers, and staff in educational and home settings using the DIR® Model. I am passionate about empowering the next generation of leaders, and creating new DIR®-Educational products and programs. Please join Profectum in raising awareness of the importance of “relationships” in all sectors of intervention, including for ALL students in the educational setting!

Monica G. Osgood, MA
Co-Founder
I just love working with Serena, Cuong, and Monica, and I was honored and grateful to join them for the “start up” of Profectum. I am thrilled that so many talented, experienced and wise Faculty members and families worldwide joined our movement from the very beginning. Together we have created a marvelous “home” where relationships flourish and an “incubator” where learning is robust and ideas based on the DIR® model expand and extend to support the families and treatment teams we support.  I cherish my time in Profectum and am so proud of what our whole team continues to create and share with so many. My greatest hope is that we continue to grow and always strive to meet the needs of our constituency. As we say to all - “The DIR® model is all about Relationships.” Profectum is the embodiment of this approach. Please come join us at Profectum as we learn and interact in such meaningful ways together. I think you’ll be as grateful as I am every day for the opportunity!

Ricki Robinson, MD, MPH
Co-Founder