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The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic continues to demonstrate far-reaching impact on individuals, families, and communities. Emerging research highlights the detrimental impact of the pandemic on perinatal mental health. Warm Connections is a behavioral health program embedded in Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) clinics. The authors describe changes made by Warm Connections to address the increased needs of this population during the pandemic. In collaboration with WIC staff, the program developed a new outreach model to provide timely, comprehensive support for caregivers in the early postpartum period. Included is a case example and an important reminder that systems under stress can find resilience and inspiration in connection and innovation.

The Tennessee First Five Training Institute (TFFTI) is a workforce development project to build infant and early childhood mental health (IECMH) capacity across Tennessee's community mental health agencies. TFFTI focused on foundational trainings in IECMH concepts, training in child-parent psychotherapy, dyadic, trauma treatment for children birth to 6 years old, and reflective consultation. This article will discuss TFFTI's programmatic shift in the wake of Tennessee's March 3, 2021, tornado, COVID-19, and the murder of George Floyd. The authors highlight TFFTI's collaborations with national partnerships to adapt training and provide support through virtual formats. The authors discuss lessons learned and provide guidance for others considering large-scale IECMH workforce development efforts.

A recent partnership between the Irving Harris Program in Child Development and Infant Mental Health and the Community Based Psychiatry Program at University of Colorado Hospital joined two different approaches to child mental health treatment: infant mental health and multisystemic therapy (MST). This article illustrates the compatibility of these two approaches by detailing the application of both models to the treatment of 4-year-old Noah and his substance-abusing mother, Kim. The authors highlight helpful aspects of each approach, such as using ecologically informed interventions (MST) and reflective practice (infant mental health) to show how openness to contrasting frameworks can ultimately benefit families.

Low-income women experience disproportionately high rates of adverse maternal mental health outcomes, such as pregnancy-related depression, and have less access to behavioral health support. Adverse maternal mental health affects children through compromising bonding, impeding early childhood development, and increasing risks of child maltreatment. Integrated behavioral health approaches can improve access to behavioral health services by locating services in community-based settings routinely accessed by low-income families. Warm Connections is an innovative integrated behavioral health program delivered in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) and rooted in an infant and early childhood mental health (IECMH) framework. This exploratory study describes Warm Connections and provides evaluation results from its pilot implementation. Findings suggest Warm Connections may reduce distress and increase parenting efficacy among low-income mothers and support further research of this program's feasibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maternal and child mental health disparities exist in the United States among people of color and people with low socioeconomic status. Adverse maternal and child mental health has short- and long-term consequences for both mothers and children. The persistent and intergenerational nature of maternal and child mental health disparities reflect an important social justice issue to which social workers must respond. The infant mental health framework can guide social workers in understanding and addressing these disparities. This framework provides a useful lens through which practitioners can understand and support the context and development of caregiver-infant dyads. This manuscript reviews maternal and child mental health disparities, provides an overview of the infant mental health framework, and describes implications for the social work practice. With roots in the social work profession and emphasis on human development within social context, the infant mental health provides insight to social work practitioners, scholars, and educators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research has documented that children of depressed mothers are at risk for a variety of emotional/behavioral problems and impairments in mother-child interaction. Depressed mothers have been characterized as withdrawn and unavailable. the present study examined behavior of preschool children of depressed and nondepressed mothers in response to their mothers' feigned sadness. The study assessed maternal depression and maternal emotional availability to determine how these related to preschoolers' expression of empathy. Sixty-two mothers and their 3½-year-olds participated in the study. Mother-child interaction was coded from four tasks: free play, eating a snack, problem solving, and sadness simulation. Children of depressed mothers were not less empathic than children of nondepressed mothers. However, the mother's mood on day of testing related to child response. Maternal emotional availability interacted with the credibility/intensity of her simulation of sadness to predict child empathy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the study that identifies antecedent characteristics of the child and family that best predicted behavioral emotional problems at three years of age. In prior work, there has been discussion extensively about mother-infant interaction, temperament, and intellectual functioning and about their interrelationships across development. It considered how the important index of attachment security related to several of the mother-child relationship measures that had been included in the previous studies. As a second step, it examined relationships of attachment security to other child characteristics, such as difficult temperament and sociability. Finally, it considered how all these variables jointly predicted behavior problems at age 3 years. This stepwise approach was based on the dominant theoretical models in personality development.

In 2016, ZERO TO THREE published its newest version of the Diagnostic Classification of Mental Health and Developmental Disorders of Infancy and Early Childhood (DC:0-5™) for children from birth through age 5 years. DC:0-5 is empirically derived and clinically meaningful with foundations in infant and early childhood mental health. [Extracted from the article]

The emergence and rapid spread of COVID-19 led to unprecedented changes for families and systems of care. This study sought to understand the needs of families participating in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) before and during the pandemic and considers the impact remote service delivery has on access to an integrated behavioral health intervention to support the psychosocial needs of children and caregivers. Needs for referral varied significantly pre- and post-pandemic onset. Analyses revealed that significantly more referrals were made regarding social determinants of health after the onset of COVID-19 (13.8%) compared with prior to the COVID-19 pandemic (4.1%, p <.05). Providers' transition to telehealth services sufficiently served WIC families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]