Behavioural, cognitive and emotional dysregulation related to parent borderline personality disorder (BPD) may have a major impact on parent-infant interactions. We investigated the ways in which infant social withdrawal and mother sensitivity may be associated to a BPD diagnosis in mothers. Two groups of clinic-referred mother-infant dyads were…

Consultation in infant mental health is a relationship-based approach to building reflective capacity in professionals who work with young children. Consultants support various professionals such as child care and medical providers with meeting the social, emotional, and developmental needs of infants and children. This article describes a…

Based on case studies in three states (CO, RI, and TX), this brief examines promising strategies to address the developmental and mental health needs of infants and toddlers involved in Child Welfare (CW). Due to family adversities, trauma, maltreatment, and separation from primary caregivers, these infants and toddlers are at substantial risk of…

Infant mental health is strongly connected to an infant's relationship with a responsive, warm, and available caregiver. However, maternal mental illness reduces a mother's ability to detect and respond to changes in her infant's expressions and communication, which may have important consequences for infant attachment and emotion regulation. The…

Women are at greater risk of exposure to interpersonal violence during pregnancy. The influence prenatal violence has on children's behavioral adjustment is generally understood to stem from its impact on mothers, but there is a dearth of prospective research to test these models. The current study evaluated the influence of interpersonal violence…

Children from birth to 3 years old with complex medical needs often experience psychological issues, but there are limited services and supports to meet their needs. To bridge this gap, the authors created the Pediatric Birth to Three Clinic and Early Childhood Mental Health Program at the University of Minnesota. They describe the toxic stress…

The estimated number of forcibly displaced persons around the globe is at a record high--nearly 70.8 million (UNHCR 2019)--75 percent of whom are women and children. This includes 34 million adolescent girls and young women, who are among the groups with the highest risk for health concerns. Indeed, many of the countries with the worst maternal…

This article describes an infant and early childhood mental health-informed therapeutic visitation program that offers clinical support, systems-level advocacy, and developmentally appropriate guidance to families navigating the child welfare and family court systems. The program offers treatment, permanency, and placement planning for infants,…

Among families with an infant or toddler, health and high-quality care are top concerns. How those who study children think about these needs has evolved in recent years, especially with recent understandings from brain science. In the first three years of life, more than one million brain connections are formed every second. This remarkable brain…

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…

Child- and family-serving programs in community-based settings wield tremendous power for improving the lives of infants and toddlers. In this article, three authors, from Ohio, Montana, and Sierra Leone, describe the principles of adaptive leadership and will share their real-world applications. Their stories explore critical questions for…

Achieving reproductive health and justice matters to family and child well-being. These two ideals are, however, often put at odds in public policies and discourse that shape the systems and programs that affect pregnant women and families. This article describes the Irving Harris Foundation's historic approach to investing in early childhood and…

Early Learning Neighborhood Collaborative (ELNC) began as a year-long initiative to support early learning for very young children and families. The program has grown into a self-sustaining, nonprofit, place-based organization committed to improving the lives of children and families in the underresourced neighborhoods of Grand Rapids, MI.…

Second Substitute Senate Bill 5903 (2019) directed the Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF) to contract with an organization providing coaching services to early achievers program participants, i.e., Child Care Aware of Washington (CCA WA), to provide statewide Infant-Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation (IECMH-C) to Early…

Collaboration between university researchers and community agencies offers the opportunity to pilot innovative, evidence-informed interventions. Partnerships of this nature also present unique ethical dilemmas to community agencies, particularly regarding research and agency policies, navigating privacy protections, adequate and consistent…