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What is Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health?

Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health (IECMH) is the developing capacity from birth to 6 to experience, regulate, and express emotions; to form close relationships; and to explore the environment and learn, all in the context of family, community, and cultural expectations for young children.

Our work is grounded in the Diversity-Informed Tenets for Work with Infants, Children and Families (Tenets) which serves as a compass for operationalizing our policies and practices.

We are happy to announce that through a partnership with the Dpt. of Public Health, the Boston Public Health Commission, MassAIMH/MSPCC and Dpt. of Mental Health, there have been three workshops on the Diversity Informed Tenets offered across the state, involving state agency partners and BIPOC led organizations as participants.

 
 

DC 0-5 training opportunity for MA providers

There are just a few slots left for the next DC: 0-5 training happening the week of October 18th. Registration information here. 
If you are interested in further opportunities, please add your name to our General Interest List, and we will e-mail you when the next training is available.

MassAIMH IECMH Endorsement®
MassAIMH Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Endorsement® is a nationally recognized credential that highlights acknowledgement of specialized knowledge and expertise for professionals working with or on behalf of families with young children.

In Massachusetts, we have 64 and counting diverse endorsed professionals across the state!
We want to congratulate Emily Koester, Sara Alexander, Miriam Mackenzie, Tanya McLean and Amy Bolotin for receiving their ECMH Endorsement®

Click the image below to learn more about Pathways to MassAIMH Endorsement®:

MassAIMH invites applications for both IMH and ECMH Endorsement® from January 2022. Please sign up below if you would like to know more and participate in future cohorts towards Endorsement.

 

Join us for a MassAIMH membership meeting in honor of Celebrate Babies Week on October 18-22nd!
MassAIMH is pleased to announce a kick off membership meeting on October 18th, 2021 from 12-1:30 pm: Come join us in community to learn what is happening across the state with IMH, to network with each other and share your insights and thoughts with the MassAIMH Board. More details to follow.
Want to join MassAIMH ? Click here!

 

Preventive Behavioral Health Services for Members Younger than 21

The Executive Office of Health and Human Services Office of Medicaid just released a bulletin stating that managed care plans must cover medically necessary preventive behavioral health services for members from birth until age 21. 

Starting September 1, 2021, members under age 21 are eligible for preventive behavioral health services if they have a positive behavioral health screen (or, in the case of an infant, a positive postpartum depression screening), even if they do not meet criteria for behavioral health diagnosis and therefore do not meet medical necessity criteria for behavioral health treatment. Services can be located in the community, schools, and/or pediatric primary care with integrated behavioral health clinician. 

See memo here for more details.

Western MA receives Early Childhood Prevention Grant

The Franklin Regional Council of Governments Communities that Care Coalition, in collaboration with the Early Childhood Mental Health Roundtable of Franklin, Hampshire and North Quabbin, has received a 15-month early childhood prevention grant for Franklin County from the Bureau of Substance Abuse and Addiction. This grant will work on increasing infrastructure in the region that will allow for a needs assessment, creation of an implementation plan of 1-2 evidence-based strategies for prevention in early childhood, as well as fund 1-2 community partners to implement those strategies. 

Professor Paris & Colleagues Call for Better Training for Infant/Early Childhood Mental Health

"In a renewed effort to both improve graduate-level social work education and social work’s focus on the importance of early childhood for lifelong health, Associate Professor Ruth Paris from Boston University School of Social Work, Assistant Professor Tova Walsh from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and other leading social work scholars recently published a paper calling on educational institutions to create an IECMH concentration in their social work programs. IECMH, a holistic approach to treating children by understanding their familial relationships, community, and broader social impacts such as systemic racism, provides social workers with a stronger, more effective foundation with which to approach children and families in micro, mezzo and macro practice." 

 

Sesame Street in Communities created a great online resource for both caregivers and professionals. Here you’ll find hundreds of bilingual multi-media tools to help kids and families enrich and expand their knowledge during the early years of birth through six, as well as webinars and professional development opportunities for educators and professionals. 

If you are looking for a specific back to school resource, check out this Sesame Street Podcast that caregivers can listen to with their children.

 

Link not working? Sign up here!

Thank you!

Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children

Contact Aditi Subramaniam

asubramaniam@mspcc.org

 

Massachusetts Department of Mental Health 

25 Staniford Street, Boston MA, 02118

Contact Andrea Gonçalves-Oliveira

andrea.goncalves-oliveira@massmail.state.ma.us

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