Connections Early Childhood Mental Health Consulting
The education and care of young children is a rewarding but demanding job—far more complicated than most casual observers realize. (NAEYC, 2022). As an administrator of an early childhood campus, you know first-hand the joys and difficulties EC educators experience. You also know a key component of high-quality early childhood education is positive interactions between colleagues, between staff and families, and of course positive relationships with children. Building these collaborative relationships requires intentional planning and attention by campus leadership.
What is Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation?
You can think of ECMHC as a resource similar to having the services of a highly trained professional school counselor as part of your staff. As an ECMHC, I aim to problem-solve with you and your staff and help you better understand and respond helpfully to children exhibiting challenging behaviors, build collaborative relationships with parents, support teachers’ professional development, and help you navigate outside resources and referrals to better assist your families and staff.
More formally, early childhood mental health consultation (ECMHC) is emerging as an evidence-based intervention for supporting young children's social/emotional development and addressing challenging behaviors. Over the last decade, the following research and practice-guided definition has taken shape: A problem-solving and capacity-building intervention implemented within a collaborative relationship between a professional consultant with mental health expertise and one or more caregivers, typically an early care and education provider and/or family member. Early childhood mental health consultation aims to improve the ability of staff, families, programs, and systems to prevent, identify, treat and reduce the impact of mental health problems among children from birth to age 8 and their families. (Adapted from Cohen & Kaufmann, 2000) As a Licensed Professional Counselor and a Registered Play Therapist I offer my expertise in the areas of child development, trauma informed care and education, parent consultation, parenting skills, and teacher training. Call or email me and we can discuss any questions you have regarding the unique needs of your campus community.