Center for Effective Mental Health Consultation
Project Description:
The Center for Effective Mental Health Consultation (HHS-2008-ACF-OHS-YD-0025)
To meet the needs of Early Head Start/Head Start (E/HS) staff and families for practical guidance on effective ways to promote young children?s social and emotional development and address challenging behaviors, this proposal creates the Center for Effective Mental Health Consultation (CEMHC). Although E/HS programs are required to enlist the services of a mental health consultant who will work with staff and families on mental health issues, the quality and effectiveness of consultation services varies greatly from program to program. This variance is due to several factors including lack of clarity regarding the consultant?s role and needed skills, and limited awareness of/access to evidence-based practices that support effective early childhood mental health consultation. The Center will address this disconnect by developing a series of high-quality products for E/HS mental health consultants (MHCs), program administrators, staff and families that will facilitate implementation and sustainability of evidence-based practices that support mental health promotion, prevention and intervention.
The Center will be formed through a consortium of four universities: Georgetown University?s Center for Child and Human Development (GUCCHD), the University of Colorado Denver (UC), Vanderbilt University and the University of South Florida (USF). Each partner organization has worked with E/HS for decades providing training/technical assistance and developing useful evidence-based materials, and Center faculty are nationally recognized leaders in the field of early childhood mental health consultation and infant and early childhood mental health. Faculty from GUCCHD have provided technical assistance to more than 30 states to help them build their capacity for delivering and evaluating mental health consultation services for young children and their caregivers.
Keyword(s):
Early childhood mental health consultation
Core Function(s):
Performing Technical Assistance and/or Training, Developing & Disseminating Information
Area of Emphasis
Education & Early Intervention, Child Care-Related Activities, Health-Related Activities
Target Audience:
Professionals and Para-Professionals
Unserved or Under-served Populations:
Racial or Ethnic Minorities, Disadvantaged Circumstances
Primary Target Audience Geographic Descriptor:
National
COVID-19 Related Data:
N/A
