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When working with families of infants and toddlers, intentionally looking beyond dyadic child-parent relationship functioning to conceptualize the child's socioemotional adaptation within their broader family collective can enhance the likelihood that clinical gains will be supported and sustained. However, there has been little expert guidance regarding how best to frame infant-family mental health therapeutic encounters for the adults responsible for the child's care and upbringing in a manner that elevates their mindfulness about and their resolve to strengthen the impact of their coparenting collective. This article describes a new collaborative initiative organized by family-oriented infant mental health professionals across several different countries, all of whom bring expansive expertise assessing and working with coparenting and triangular family dynamics. The Collaborative's aims are to identify a means for framing initial infant mental health encounters and intakes with families with the goal of assessing and raising family consciousness about the relevance of coparenting. Initial points of convergence and growing points identified by the Collaborative for subsequent field study are addressed., (© 2023 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.)

In this paper, we consider whether the field of infant and early childhood mental health (IECMH) needs its own code of ethics. We begin by describing unique features of infant and early childhood mental health (IECMH) and the diverse strategies that the field has developed to address complex clinical dilemmas, among them workforce development, clinical supports, policy statements, and statements of ethical values. Because of the field's interdisciplinary nature, we also consider how various contributing professions and organizations address ethical issues. While these are important resources that can inform ethical decision-making, we identify some of the limitations of the current approaches. We argue that it is time for the field of IECMH to take an intentional, systematic approach to directly address the complex and unique ethical dilemmas faced by infant and early childhood mental health practitioners, and we grapple with some of the challenges developing such a code might entail. We suggest several avenues for better understanding the scope of ethical issues and ethical decision-making processes in IECMH that could be used to support developing an ethics code that is responsive to the unique and challenging world of infant and early childhood mental health., (© 2023 The Authors. Infant Mental Health Journal published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.)

Infant mental health is explicitly relational and strengths based as a field. Ethical dilemmas in infant mental health have received insufficient attention at the level of infant mental health professionals (IMHP) and other professionals caring for infants who must grapple with questions of when caregivers and infants have conflicting interests. We present composite cases drawn from North American and Australian contexts, using three systems in which such conflicts may commonly manifest: child protection, home visiting, and medical settings. The field of infant and early childhood mental health (IECMH) should begin to discuss such dilemmas and how best to balance the needs of caregivers and infants when they are not well aligned., (© 2023 The Authors. Infant Mental Health Journal published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.)

Early relational experiences are key drivers for developing social emotional capacities, educational achievement, mental health, physical health, and overall wellbeing. The child health sectors are committed to promotion, prevention, and early intervention that optimize children's health and development, often employing evidence-based screening as foundational practices. Despite a variety of validated parent-infant observational assessment tools, few are practical within busy practice settings, acceptable with all racial and ethnic groups and ready for universal adoption. In response to this need, a team of clinicians, early childhood educators, researchers and infant mental health specialists collaborated to develop and test a novel video-based, dyadic relational screening and monitoring tool, the Early Relational Health Screen (ERHS). This tool uniquely focuses on the early parent-child relationship (6-24 months), within the construct of early relational health (ERH). Initial testing demonstrated that the ERHS is a valid, reliable, feasible, and useful screening and monitoring tool for clinical applications. The ERHS was further developed within a population-based, prospective research study and adapted with brief video feedback for parents in the home visiting and child health sectors. The ERHS and its adaptations appear to advance ERH and equity within the transforming child health and public health care systems of today., (© 2022 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.)

IECMHC can and should be a vehicle that promotes greater equity in access to high quality relationships within an early classroom environment. It is important to consider consultation through a racial equity lens to ensure that it is integrated in all levels of work. The goal of the study was to replicate the results from other IECMHC programs with a diverse, largely Latinx, population. The Jump Start program was given the unique opportunity to adapt the Georgetown Framework of Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation to a multicultural population in Miami. A total of 88 early learning programs and 244 teachers participated. Services were provided in English, Spanish, and Creole at the program- and classroom-level. Pre- and post-data were collected at both levels. Significant improvements at the program- and classroom-level were found post-consultation. Consultants demonstrated fidelity to core program practices while providing culturally and linguistically competent service. The current study replicated findings regarding the effectiveness of IECMHC while expanding results to a diverse metropolitan community. Key features of program success may be attributed to the use of highly trained consultants, action planning, fidelity monitoring, and enrollment of programs that were ready and have a champion for IECMHC., (© 2022 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.)

The optimal relational experiences of infants and young children demand a cross-sector workforce informed by Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health (IECMH) principles and practices. A recent review by the Alliance for the Advancement of Infant Mental Health, Inc identified seven themes that help define "What makes an IECMH association strong?": (1) Identity, (2) Cross-Systems Collaborations, (3) Sound Organizational Structure, (4) Competency-Informed Training, (5) Reflective Supervision Capacity, (6) Policy, and (7) Higher Education. The present paper documents the story of the Association of Infant Mental Health in Tennessee (AIMHiTN) and the role of the Endorsement for Culturally Sensitive, Relationship-Focused Practice Promoting IECMH in that growth across those seven themes with the additional themes of (8) Funding and, (9) Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging. First, foundational literature is reviewed to summarize IECMH-informed workforce development. Next, AIMHiTN's story of workforce development is mapped onto the nine themes and challenges and lessons learned are summarized. The article aims to serve as a roadmap for other states, provinces, territories, or nations hoping to develop their own Association for Infant Mental Health (AIMH) as well as a guide for those with existing AIMHs for promoting continued growth and sustainability., (© 2021 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.)

Copyright of Infant Mental Health Journal is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Infant Mental Health Journal is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Reflective supervision and consultation (RS/C) is regarded as best practice within the infant/early childhood mental health field. Benefits of RS/C on the early childhood workforce and children and families have been demonstrated through case studies, conceptual pieces, and individual research studies. However, findings across studies have not been summarized using gold-standard methodology, thus the state of existing empirical support for RS/C is unclear. This systematic review examined the collective evidence for RS/C across diverse early childhood-serving programs. Electronic databases were searched to identify studies investigating associations between RS/C and professionals' reflective capacity and well-being, child/family outcomes, and implementation factors. Twenty-eight papers were identified. Studies showed positive associations between RS/C and early childhood-serving professionals' reflective capacity and well-being, with qualitative studies reporting more consistent results than studies using quantitative methods. Many methodological limitations were identified, including incomplete reporting of study designs and participant characteristics, variability in outcome measures, and lack of randomization and comparison groups. Furthermore, few studies examined child and family outcomes. Therefore, while RS/C shows great promise, it was difficult to ascertain its overall effectiveness from an empirical standpoint. Establishing RS/C as an empirically supported approach will be possible with more rigorous research., (© 2023 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.)

Ethics is concerned with the basis for moral judgments of "right" and "wrong" and is central to the clinical endeavor. Many clinicians integrate ethical estimations into their work without much conscious awareness. However, explicit use of ethical principles and frameworks can help navigate clinical decision-making when there is a sense of moral conflict or ambiguity about the "right" course of action. This article aims to highlight the key concepts and principles in clinical ethics as they apply to IECMH practice and stimulate a bigger conversation in the profession around how to support each other to maintain high ethical standards in working with young children and their families. Specifically, the authors consider the relevance of Beauchamp and Childress' four principles framework (respect for autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice), and address some of the special ethical challenges in the field, namely, the vulnerability of the infant, the need for a competent workforce, caring for caregivers, and the problem of multiple patients. Finally, the role of infant rights is briefly explored, noting the significant interest and debate that has been generated by the publication of the World Association of Infant Mental Health's Position Paper on the Rights of Infants., (© 2023 The Authors. Infant Mental Health Journal published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.)

Copyright of Infant Mental Health Journal is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Parents of infants and young children who experience harsh circumstances are among those most vulnerable to the added stressors associated with COVID‐19. Home visiting models have been shown to enhance outcomes for parents and infants when delivered in person, but in many parts of the world, the pandemic rendered in‐person home visits difficult or impossible. In this special section, we examine adaptations made by home visiting programs to allow continued service delivery through telehealth, and strategies for assessing whether interventions maintain reach and fidelity when implemented remotely. In the first paper, Bullinger et al. (program implementers of SafeCare) provide evidence of the increased risk of maltreatment during COVID‐19 for many families, and thus the need for home visiting services. Rybińska et al., developers and implementers of Family Connects, present evidence regarding their success in reaching families through telehealth. Roben and colleagues, in the third paper, report that clinicians implementing Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch‐up through telehealth maintained fidelity at similar rates seen through in‐person implementation. Finally, Tabachnick et al. describe procedures for collecting physiological data from infants and parents while conducting assessments remotely. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reflective practices provide a supportive base through which preservice infant and early childhood teachers and allied professionals can achieve knowledge, skills, and professional dispositions to support young children and their families. This paper is a program description that describes the rationale for infusing reflective practices into the learning goals for preservice early childhood training, highlighting the specific reflection skills from the Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Competency Guidelines. We describe how one university early childhood training program promotes student reflection skills referencing three distinct perspectives: (1) why reflection is essential to developing knowledge and skills; (2) the role group reflection plays in sustaining deep knowledge and skill development for students and faculty; (3) how faculty promote students' awareness of the connection between personal experience and professional dispositions through reflection during practicum experiences. The benefits and challenges of embedding reflective practices in preservice early childhood training are also discussed., (© 2023 The Authors. Infant Mental Health Journal published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.)

The infant health movement was launched nearly 50 years ago with the publication of the now classic paper, Ghosts in the Nursery: A psychoanalytic approach to the problems of impaired infant‐mother relationships, written by Selma Fraiberg, Edna Adelson, and Vivian Shapiro (1975). This paper offers us lessons for infant mental health practice that have been proven true time and again over the last 50 years. These lessons both underscore the factors essential to clinical progress across a range of interventions, and remind us of the significant challenges we face in these times of massive, global trauma and oppression, extreme economic hardship, and systemic racism. This commentary reviews the key lessons of Fraiberg and her colleagues' classic paper, addresses some of the challenges inherent in retaining the breadth and substance of Fraiberg's model in contemporary practice, and proposes a model for conceptualizing infant and early childhood mental health practice that is geared toward building the relational foundations of reflection (Slade, 2023). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation (IECMHC) is a preventative, capacity-building intervention in which mental health professionals partner with early childhood professionals to indirectly improve the environments and relationships that young children experience. Prior research has demonstrated that IECMHC is associated with positive outcomes for children, teachers, and classrooms. Over the past decade, IECMHC implementation and research have expanded, warranting an updated review. The current paper provides an update of the IECMHC evidence base. Included studies (n = 16) were systematically gathered, screened, and coded for context, intervention characteristics, methods and measures, outcomes across ecological levels, and alignment with the IDEAS Impact Framework's guiding questions. Our analysis replicates prior reviews, describing the positive impact of IECMHC on outcomes such as child externalizing behavior, teacher self-efficacy, and teacher-child interactions. Beyond updating prior reviews, this analysis describes emerging, nuanced findings regarding the mechanisms of change and the differential impact of IECMHC. We augment our review with descriptions of evaluations that did not meet our inclusion criteria (e.g., IECMHC in the home visiting context, unpublished evaluation reports) to provide context for our findings. Finally, we provide policy and practice implications and articulate an agenda for future research., (© 2022 The Authors. Infant Mental Health Journal published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.)

Reflective supervision/consultation (RS/C) is a relationship for learning that embraces reflection and reflective practice strategies. It is considered best practice within the infant and early childhood mental health (IECMH) field. Based on research with supervisors, essential components of RS/C have been operationalized and used to develop evaluative tools. Little is known, however, about the essential components that supervisees find most useful. This paper, part I of a two-part series, describes the essential components that supervisees identify as fundamental and ways they believe their work is supported by participation in RS/C. Fifty IECMH professionals located in the United States who received RS/C participated in focus groups or individual interviews. Data were analyzed using a Grounded Theory approach. Essential components of RS/C from the supervisee perspective included supervisee feelings of safety, the development of trust, holding a non-judgmental stance, being available and present, and consistency and predictability. Additionally, supervisees identified outcomes of RS/C that included components of professional wellness, personal growth, and infant and family engagement. This study adds the supervisee's voice to the identification and operationalization of essential RS/C components and elucidates outcomes of RS/C that supervisees view as connected to their professional role., (© 2022 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.)

Keywords: COVID-19; infant mental health; early childhood mental health; pandemic EN COVID-19 infant mental health early childhood mental health pandemic 5 7 3 02/07/22 20220101 NES 220101 The COVID-19 pandemic has created unprecedented challenges for infants, toddlers, young children, their families, and the professionals who serve them (e.g., Brown et al., 2020; Holmes et al., 2021). COVID-19, infant mental health, early childhood mental health, pandemic Following an introduction by Ayelet Talmi, four papers examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on an array of infant and early childhood mental health services offered across clinical and community settings. [Extracted from the article]

Copyright of Infant Mental Health Journal is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Infant Mental Health Journal is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Infant Mental Health Journal is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Infant Mental Health Journal is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Infant Mental Health Journal is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Infant Mental Health Journal is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Infant Mental Health Journal is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Infant Mental Health Journal is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Infant Mental Health Journal is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Infant Mental Health Journal is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Infant Mental Health Journal is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Infant Mental Health Journal is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)