Infant & Early Childhood Mental Health: Advancing Practices in Personnel Preparation

Learn about an innovative approach to personnel preparation involving collaboration of EI/ECSE teachers & social workers that focuses on better addressing infant/early childhood mental health in ECE settings. Reasoning for this work, strategies for cross-program collaboration, and a crosswalk of interdisciplinary standards, including infant mental health, will be discussed. Participants will be able to: 1. Define infant/early childhood mental health & how it is linked to early learning. 2. Identify why it is an ethical responsibility for EI/ECSE teachers/professionals to have knowledge in infant/EC mental health . 3. Summarize DEC RPs related to Infant/EC mental health and identify how these are crosswalked with cross-disciplinary preservice standards. 4. Learn strategies for addressing infant/EC mental health in ECE settings and how these can be embedded into current preservice curricula. 5. Discuss strategies for collaboration across interdisciplinary programs (i.e., EI/ECSE teachers + social workers) and promoting sustainability of cross-disciplinary training through use of implementation science.