Welcome to California Center for Infant-Family and Early Childhood Mental Health’s Website!
The Need to Measure a Relationship
As the field of Infant Mental Health continues to grow, there is an ongoing need for quality training for providers across multiple service delivery systems. Our knowledge of early brain development has pushed many service sectors towards investments in prevention, and increased referrals to services for children under three. Service systems are creating increased linkages; one such example is the Child Protective Services (CPS) linking with Public Mental Health to recommend intervention for younger children. As a result, mental health providers may be experiencing an increase in referrals of children birth to five. MORE
Upcoming Profectum International Conference in Pasadena
In the DIR® model, clinicians learn about the range of normative development across brain areas (and across disciplines) within a holistic frame (Greenspan and Wieder, 2003; 2006). The DIR® model provides a roadmap for clinicians, parents, and all professionals working with younger populations that capture the complexity of early development. In practical language, the DIR® model helps clinicians to know what to do, when and why. Evidence is now mounting as to the efficacy of DIR® for the treatment of autism, even though the model began squarely in infant mental health when Greenspan and Wieder conducted studies of multi risk families with toddlers in the late 1970’s. MORE
Different endorsement categories for different professionals – Which is right for you?
The endorsement categories describe how a practitioner might achieve infant-family and early childhood mental health competency at the level of either a Transdisciplinary Infant-Family and Early Childhood Mental Health Practitioner or an Infant-Family and Early Childhood Mental Health Specialist. Reflective Practice Facilitators (RPFs) can offer reflective practice opportunities, while Reflective Practice Mentors provide reflective practice and mentorship to the Reflective Practice Facilitators. MORE
The California Center is available to support your organization.
The California Center offers an array of services to promote the mental health of children under the age of five by addressing organizational development, research and evaluation, training and technical assistance, policy and evaluation and product development. The services and products range from broad-based collaboration on policy issues at a national level to conducting training and workshops in the field with professionals. MORE
