Offers a series of tutorials designed to enhance skills and knowledge about how to implement effective mental health consultation in community-based programs.
Makes the case for creating opportunities for families by addressing the needs of parents and their children simultaneously. The report describes a new approach to reducing poverty, which calls for connecting low-income families with early childhood education, job training, and other tools to achieve financial stability and break the cycle of poverty. It recommends ways to help equip parents and children with what they need to thrive.
Provides a description of the emerging evidence base that many of the beliefs and much of the current body of knowledge about consultation is grounded in literature and the experiences of mental health and early care and education (ECE) providers, educators, and other experts (i.e., practice-based evidence).
Describes the general process of Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation using candid, unfiltered stories to illustrate what consultants do within early care and education settings in collaboration with families, teachers, children and other partners every day.
Provides tips for parents of young children, early education and child care providers, and pediatricians to promote social-emotional health among young children.
Supports consultants working in child care settings, especially those who have not had education or training specific to infants and toddlers in group care. These modules were designed to complement training offered to early childhood consultants through the National Training Institute at the Department of Maternal and Child Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Provides resources and a guide to a public awareness campaign that was launched by The Departments of Health and Human Services and Education which is targeted at numerous sectors (e.g. early care and education, medical, primary health care, child welfare, mental health) —highlighting the importance of universal developmental and behavioral screening and support within the context of normative child development.
Covers topics such as initiating consultation; getting to know the program; adult relationships; beginning case consultation; gathering information and creating a picture of the child; interpreting behavior and developing hypotheses; and translating hypotheses into responsive action within the child-care setting. Includes case examples of effective programmatic functioning, interstaff and parent-staff relationships, and/or direct child interventions.
Synthesizes the findings from 26 recent studies that addressed the effectiveness of early childhood mental health consultation with respect to staff- and program-level outcomes. Across the reviewed studies, there is some evidence that early childhood mental health consultation helped increase staff self-efficacy/confidence and competence in dealing with troubling or difficult behaviors of young children in their care. In several studies, staff receiving consultation had improved sensitivity and lower job-related stress.
Discusses the challenges to estimating the prevalence of serious emotional/behavioral disorder in early childhood, gives a brief review of literature that provides estimates, and provides recommendations to improving the process of estimation.
