This article describes the development and implementation of an integrated early childhood mental health and caregiver support program that uses a transdisciplinary approach to engage families and systems, maximize service efficiency, and ultimately create a next generation of safer families. A case example illustrates a family's journey through…

This article describes the ongoing impact of one Early Head Start grantee's participation in a statewide initiative to connect the state's network of residential substance abuse treatment programs for women and their children with their local Early Head Start program. The initiative was designed to enhance child development and parenting supports…

The Baby Leadership Learning Collaborative (Baby LLC) initiative is a leadership group committed to bridging relationships across service sectors to promote infant-early childhood mental health and to break the multigenerational cycle of risk often associated with early adversity and trauma. Baby LLC has guided an early relational health focus…

Through Strong Families Strong Forces, a reflective parenting program for military families with young children, we were privileged to work with contemporary military fathers who served in the post-9/11 conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Due to this work, the authors gained valuable insight into the complexity of fathering during wartime, the…

Infants, toddlers, and young children have unique needs when separated from their primary caregivers because of child abuse and neglect. Parents of these children often have their own histories of abuse and neglect and can benefit from assessments and interventions that bear in mind the effect caregiving histories have on present parenting. This…

Nurturing care in early childhood requires responsive interactions and opportunities to learn; however, there are few large-scale programs in low- and middle-income countries that support parents' ability to provide responsive care and activities that help children learn. The Reach Up training program was developed to increase capacity of…

So much more is known now than a generation ago about how and when brain architecture is built and how deeply it is influenced by early experiences. We know for certain now that the way adult caregivers, parents in particular, interact with children during the first 5 years can actually shape their brain architecture for life--for better and for…

Not all mothers who struggle with drug addiction have difficulties parenting, but many of them do. Moreover, evidence-based parenting programs that have proven efficacious with other parent populations often fail with mothers who are fighting chronic substance addiction, perhaps because of the neurobiological changes in neural reward circuitry…

Depression in pregnant women and mothers of very young children is a pressing public health issue. Maternal depression is linked to a number of serious difficulties for mothers, their young children, and mother-child relationships. Unrecognized and untreated, it can lead to long-lasting impairment for both mothers and their children. However,…

This article focuses on a disability culture-based organization's process of addressing baby care adaptation issues of parents with physical disabilities and their babies and toddlers. The author describes the role of teamwork between infant mental health specialists and occupational therapists, application in custody situations, and public policy…

In this article, the authors tell the story of one family's journey toward healing using the Child First home visiting and Circle of Security Parenting interventions. Parents with complex trauma histories frequently float through services for years looking for guidance to help them address their struggles. Often, these services do not offer…

The Buffering Toxic Stress Consortium was created by the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation within the Administration for Children and Families to test preventive interventions for Early Head Start families facing toxic stress, as conceptualized by Shonkoff, Boyce, and McEwen in their influential 2009 article. Because relationships…

Young children with disabilities may be at elevated risk for behavior problems as well as maltreatment. preventive approaches that can be infused into early intervention services are needed to support parents, build competencies among young children, and enhance protective factors that may temper risk. Two interventions--Stepping Stones Triple P,…

Self-regulation lays the foundation for positive social relationships and academic success. In this article, we provide an overview of self-regulation and the key terms related to selfregulation, such as executive function. We discuss research on how self-regulation develops and connections between self-regulation and social and academic outcomes.…

Child maltreatment affects millions of children each year. health care providers are increasingly called upon to address such psychosocial problems facing many families. In this article, the authors describe a practical approach to further enhance pediatric primary care and make it more responsive to the needs of children and families. The Safe…