Tag Archives: Mental Health

National Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day

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Thursday, May 10, 2018

National Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day is Thursday, May 10, 2018! This annual event raises awareness about the importance of children’s mental health and its impact on their healthy development.

Mental Health and Head Start

Early childhood mental health is a child’s growing capacity to experience, regulate, and express emotions. For children birth to 5 years of age, early childhood mental health is the same as social and emotional development. Head Start and Early Head Start have a long-standing partnership with mental health consultants and community professionals to promote the well-being of children, families, and staff in the program.

Awareness Day 2018

The national theme for Awareness Day 2018 is Partnering for Health and Hope Following Trauma. It will focus on the importance of an integrated approach to caring for the mental health needs of children and families who have experienced trauma. The Office of Head Start and the Office of Child Care will highlight best practices that support resilience for this year’s Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day. Look for more details about opportunities to participate in the coming weeks.

More than 1,100 communities and 160 national collaborating organizations and federal programs will organize local Awareness Day activities and events around the country. Learn more about Awareness Day 2018 and how you and your community can get involved at https://www.samhsa.gov/children/awareness-day/2018.

Interested in planning an awareness day event at your program? Read about activities that communities across the country held for National Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day 2017 at https://www.samhsa.gov/children/awareness-day/2017/activities.

Upcoming Webinar Making a Difference: Maternal Depression

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Date and Time: March 27, 2018 from 1:00 – 2:00 pm ET/12:00 – 1:00 pm CT/11:00 am – 12:00 pm MT/10:00 – 11:00 am PT

Description:  Maternal depression encompasses a range of conditions that can affect women at any time, and occurs most often during pregnancy and in the first year postpartum.  Having a depressed mother can have a negative impact on young children’s behavior and social/emotional development. Home visitors and early childhood professionals are often best positioned to support very young children and their families. Infant and early childhood mental health (IECMH) consultants can help home visitors and early care and education (ECE) providers learn the skills needed to support children and families who are experiencing the effects of maternal depression.

This webinar will explore the role of IECMH consultants in building staff capacity to identify maternal depression and support mothers and their young children through screening, support, and linkages to evidence-based prevention and treatment services. After attending this webinar, participants will:

  • Understand how maternal depression affects infants and toddlers.
  • Understand how IECMH consultants can help ECE providers and home visitors identify maternal depression in the families they serve.
  • Identify strategies to address maternal depression in ECE and home visiting settings.

Who Should Attend? This webinar is for program directors in infant and early childhood mental health consultation, early care and education, Early Head Start and Head Start, and home visiting, as well as federal, state, tribal, and community maternal and child health agency workers.

Please forward this invitation to anyone who may be interested in attending.

Presenters: 

  • Deborah Perry, Expert Mentor with the Center of Excellence for IECMHC, and Director of Research and Evaluation and a Research Professor at the Georgetown University Center for Child and Human Development
  • Cathy Ayoub, Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School, and Director of Research and Evaluation at Brazelton Touchpoint Center
  • Debra Sosin, Program Manager for Family Connections at Brazelton Touchpoint Center

Please register by March 26, 2018 to receive webinar login information.

 

Register Here

 

Opportunities to Promote Children’s Behavioral Health: Health Care Reform and Beyond: Workshop Summary 

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11/2015

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), which was signed into law in 2010, has several provisions that could greatly improve the behavioral health of children and adolescents in the United States. It requires that many insurance plans cover mental health and substance use disorder services, rehabilitative services to help support people with behavioral health challenges, and preventive services like behavioral assessments for children and depression screening for adults. These and other provisions provide an opportunity to confront the many behavioral health challenges facing youth in America.

To explore how the ACA and other aspects of health care reform can support innovations to improve children’s behavioral health and sustain those innovations over time, the Forum on Promoting Children’s Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioral Health held a workshop on April 1-2, 2015. The workshop explicitly addressed the behavioral health needs of all children, including those with special health needs. It also took a two-generation approach, looking at the programs and services that support not only children but also parents and families. This report summarizes the presentations and discussions of this workshop.

Source: The National Academies Press

Available at: http://www.nap.edu/catalog/21795/opportunities-to-promote-childrens-behavioral-health-health-care-reform-and?utm_source=NAP+Newsletter&utm_campaign=37318e693a-Final_Book_2015_11_30_21795

A Healthy Early Childhood Action Plan: Policies for a Lifetime of Well-being

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11/2015

A Healthy Early Childhood Action Plan: Policies for a Lifetime of Well-being highlights more than 40 policy target areas that are key to achieving national goals of reducing toxic stress and Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and improving the lives of millions of children.

Living with prolonged stress and/or adverse experiences can significantly increase a child’s risk for a range of physical, mental and behavioral problems – increasing the likelihood for hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, stroke, cognitive and developmental disorders, depression, anxiety and a range of other concerns.

Currently, around one-quarter of children ages 5 and younger live in poverty and more than half of all children experience at least one ACE.  According to research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than one-quarter of children experience physical abuse (28.3 percent) and substance abuse in the household (26.9 percent) while sexual abuse (24.7 percent for girls and 16 percent for boys) and parent divorce or separation (23.3 percent) are also prevalent.

“More and more studies show investing in early childhood pays off in a lifetime of better health and well-being,” said Jeffrey Levi, PhD, executive director of TFAH.  “There are dozens of policy levers we can and should be pushing to ensure all children have high-quality preventive healthcare; safe, stable, nurturing relationships, homes and communities; good nutrition and enough physical activity; and positive early learning experiences.”

The report calls for increased public health engagement in early childhood areas, with a series of recommendations including to:

Build beyond the traditional healthcare system by integrating health and other social supports, including accountable health communities for children, by:

  • Ensuring every child has access to high-quality and affordable healthcare;
  • Building systems to help identify and provide support for children’s needs beyond the traditional medical system, but that have a major impact on health;
  • Focusing on a two generation approach to healthcare – and social service support;
  • Modernizing and expanding the availability of mental health and substance misuse treatment services – for both parents and children;
  • Expanding the focus of a trauma-informed approach across a wider range of federal, state and locally supported services; and
  • Improving services and care coordination for Children and Youth with Special Healthcare Needs (CYSHCN).

Promote protective, healthy communities and establish expert and technical assistance backbone support to help spread and scale programs nationally and in every state, by:

  • Improving the collection, analysis and integration of child health, well-being and services data to better assess trends and target services and programs;
  • Strengthening the role of federal, state and local health departments as the chief health strategist in communities; and
  • Establishing a support organization in every state that provides expertise and technical assistance.

Increase investments in core, effective early childhood policies and programs, by:

  • Making programs and services that promote early childhood well-being a higher priority to ensure they can be delivered on a scale to help all families (ranging from home visiting programs to child welfare services to increasing economic opportunity for families to child care and early education); and
  • Better aligning systems and financial resources to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of health, social services and education services.

The report includes a series of maps showing the status of different states on key trends and policy areas and case studies of evidence-based and model programs, organizations and initiatives—which are putting these recommendations into action—including the Nurse Family Partnership, Family Check Up Models, Abriendo Puertas/Opening Doors, Good Behavior Game, Child-Parent Center Program, Crittenton Children’s Center at Saint Luke’s Health System, Wholesome Wave, Community Asthma Initiative at Boston Children’s Hospital and many others.

“If we work together across sectors – bringing together the collective energy and resources of diverse partners – we will have a better chance of achieving the common goal of a healthy start for all of America’s children,” said Gail Christopher, chair of TFAH’s Board of Directors and vice president for policy and senior advisor at the WK Kellogg Foundation.  “This report shines a light on many promising policies and programs.  But the question remains whether we can garner the public will to turn the potential into the promise that improves the lives of our next generation.”

The report was supported by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Source: Trust for America’s Health

Available at: http://healthyamericans.org/report/123

Children with a Parent in Prison: The Forgotten Casualties

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10/27/2015

When we talk about crime, we usually focus on either the perpetrator or the victim; the perpetrator’s family and community are rarely discussed. But when a parent is sent to prison, it has consequences for their children.

In a recent report from Child Trends, my colleagues and I found that there are five million children in the United States who have had a parent that they lived with go to jail or prison—more than the total number of children in the entire state of New York. And the burden is not evenly divided. Those who are poor, black, and/or live in rural areas are more likely to see a parent imprisoned. Nearly 12 percent of black children have had a residential parent go to jail.

That experience has consequences. We found that children who have had an incarcerated parent are more likely to repeat grades or have a parent called in to talk about problems in school, and parents reported lower school engagement. Troublingly, the experience was also associated with other potentially traumatic experiences, such as frequent economic hardship, parental divorce, and living with someone who had a substance abuse problem. While it is not clear whether these problems are directly caused by parental incarceration, it is evident that these children need special attention and help.

The first places to help these children are their schools. Children with an incarcerated parent may need extra support, and schools can make efforts to identify such children and monitor their progress—although they should be careful not to further stigmatize them in the process. Schools can also provide counseling services and develop other programs to address the unique needs of this group.

Additionally, we help these children by addressing the way that we incarcerate parents. We can promote policies that make it easier and more affordable for incarcerated parents to stay in touch with their children. Prisoners are often housed far away from their families, making in-person visits costly and difficult to schedule. Even phone calls can be prohibitively expensive for prisoners and families alike. Providing local access to video conferencing technology is one option; simply reducing the rates for calls to family is another. Encouraging the continuation of positive family ties should be seen as an essential part of preparing incarcerated parents for success in their communities once they’re released.

In-person visits can also be traumatizing for kids. A visit is a visceral reminder of the parent’s situation, and can be potentially upsetting. However, there have been promising early results from programs that make visits more child-friendly. Waiting rooms with toys, streamlined security, and friendly meeting rooms may make the surroundings less intimidating and lighten the experience of meeting the parent.

We can also help parent prisoners make the most of the contact they have. One researcher has recommended five types of programs to serve incarcerated parents: education in parental skills, programs that provide extended special visits for children, child-friendly facilities for visits, parenting support groups, and custody services to aid with divorce proceedings and child support modifications. Most current programs fall into the first category, but there is little research on the most effective programs for this population. Creating more such programs, and studying their effects, should be a high priority. In fact, the Department of Health and Human Services is currently funding such efforts in Washington State.

Of course, the most effective strategy is prevention. Finding alternative punishments for low-level offenders, so they can stay with their families and in their communities, may be the best thing for their children. Maybe if we consider the children that will be left behind, we can make better decisions about when—and if—to send a parent to prison.

Source: Child Trends

Available at: http://www.childtrends.org/children-with-a-parent-in-prison-the-forgotten-casualties/

#RethinkDiscipline in Early Childhood Settings

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10/15/2015

Assistant Secretary Michael Yudin convenes national experts for a discussion about the use of suspensions and expulsions in early childhood settings, and local efforts to end the use of exclusionary discipline for young children. Yudin will be joined by:

Walter Gilliam – Director of the Edward Zigler Center in Child Development and Social Policy

Beth Mascitti-Miller – Chief to Office of Early Childhood Education, Chicago Public Schools

Myra Jones-Taylor – Commissioner of Early Childhood, State of Connecticut

Alison Pepper – Consultant for faith-based and secular early childhood education programs

Source: US Department of Education

Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfzsfbJzjXk

HHS Launches National Center for Excellence in Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation

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10/9/2015

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is pleased to announce the launch of the National Center of Excellence for Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation (CoE), a new $6 million investment to support children’s social emotional development and behavioral health led by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration in partnership with the Health Resources and Services Administration and the Administration for Children and Families.

Infant and early childhood mental health consultation is a multi-level preventive intervention that builds the capacity of teachers, home visitors, and families to promote social-emotional development and has demonstrated impacts for improving children’s social skills and adult-child relationships; reducing challenging behaviors, expulsions and suspensions; increasing family-school collaboration; increasing classroom quality; and reducing teacher stress, burnout, and turnover.

Research has also shown that a child’s first years of life are critically important for brain development, including the acquisition of social, emotional, and cognitive skills that create a foundation for later school and life success.  That is why one of President Obama’s key priorities is ensuring that all children have access to high quality early learning opportunities and supports that promote children’s healthy development, including social-emotional and behavioral health.Although we know what a difference social-emotional and behavioral health makes in the lives of our children, too many of our nation’s teachers and early learning providers still lack the professional development and supports they need to foster readiness in children they serve.  Social and emotional health is among the most pressing training needs of early educators, and the early childhood system is often lacking in its capacity to provide the kind of support that teachers need to help them promote healthy social emotional development and address the behavioral challenges of young children.  Lack of sufficient training and support results in higher teacher turnover, and can be linked to poorer child outcomes.

Over the next four years, the Center of Excellence will build strong, sustainable mental health consultation systems across states, cities, and tribal communities across the country through the development of culturally responsive state-of-the-art tools, and through the delivery of training and technical assistance. The new Center of Excellence will provide inclusive and culturally sensitive expertise, including a focus on tribal communities. Work will be steered by a group of experts in the early childhood mental health field, including tribal experts, to ensure that the work is culturally responsive to the needs of American Indian and Alaska Native children and their families. The unique strengths and needs of tribal communities warrant an intentional focus and strong partnership with tribal nations. The Center of Excellence will include attention to racial and ethnic disparities in exclusionary discipline practices, disparities in access to behavioral health services, and will promote tools and trainings that are culturally responsive and relevant, addressing issues of implicit bias, and benefiting all children, their families, and their caregivers.

The need to better support early childhood professionals with access to training and mental health consultation is particularly acute in  in remote rural and tribal communities, where the geography, limited resources, and lack of infrastructure can be significant barriers to the attraction, retention, and ongoing professional development of teachers and home visitors. Additionally, we know that infants, toddlers, young children and their families in rural communities have mental health needs that are not currently being met because there is a lack of available, accessible, and affordable services for young children. In fact, estimates show that 1.9 million children with mental health difficulties live in areas where there are minimal to no resources available to meet their needs.

This project closely aligns with the White House Rural Council’s Rural Impact strategy to address child poverty, which is another of the ways the Obama Administration is addressing the needs of vulnerable young children and families by supporting cross-agency, nonprofit, and private sector partnerships to better serve rural and tribal kids and families.  Expanding access to high-quality early childhood programs that include a strong focus on children’s social-emotional and behavioral health, is a key piece of this strategy.  And this project also aligns with the My Brother’s Keeper (MBK) Initiative, and the MBK Task Force Report, which recommends building a strong foundation of social-emotional and behavioral health, fostered by warm, enriching, and secure relationships with adults like parents and early learning providers, as an integral component of entering school ready to learn.

Today’s announcement is an important step forward in boosting the quality of early childhood programs and thereby ensuring the healthy social, emotional and behavioral development of young children across the country, including in rural and tribal communities. Though families in rural and tribal communities face a unique set of challenges, they also possess a strong set of assets. The work of the Center of Excellence will build on those assets to improve school readiness, school success, and the well-being of the next generation.

Source: The White House

Available at: https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2015/10/09/hhs-launches-national-center-excellence-infant-and-early-childhood-mental-health

Opportunities to Promote Children’s Behavioral Health: Health Care Reform and Beyond: Workshop Summary 

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11/2015

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), which was signed into law in 2010, has several provisions that could greatly improve the behavioral health of children and adolescents in the United States. It requires that many insurance plans cover mental health and substance use disorder services, rehabilitative services to help support people with behavioral health challenges, and preventive services like behavioral assessments for children and depression screening for adults. These and other provisions provide an opportunity to confront the many behavioral health challenges facing youth in America.

To explore how the ACA and other aspects of health care reform can support innovations to improve children’s behavioral health and sustain those innovations over time, the Forum on Promoting Children’s Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioral Health held a workshop on April 1-2, 2015. The workshop explicitly addressed the behavioral health needs of all children, including those with special health needs. It also took a two-generation approach, looking at the programs and services that support not only children but also parents and families. This report summarizes the presentations and discussions of this workshop.

Source: The National Academies Press

Available at: http://www.nap.edu/catalog/21795/opportunities-to-promote-childrens-behavioral-health-health-care-reform-and

Motivational Interviewing Suite

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10/2015

These short videos provide examples of how to use Motivational Interviewing strategies in everyday conversations between Head Start and Early Head Start staff and families. In the first video, watch as a parent and a teacher talk about a child’s challenging behavior in the classroom. The second shows a home visitor talking to a parent about a positive depression screening.

Staff can use these videos to identify skills to enhance their relationships with families. Watch the accompanying debriefs to see how the strategies impact how the participants think and feel. Use the related materials to deepen your knowledge of the process and skills around Motivational Interviewing.

Source: National Center on Health, Early Childhood Learning and Knowledge Center

Available at: http://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/hslc/tta-system/health/mental-health/ec-mental-health-consultation/motivational-interviewing.html

Breaking Through: Video and User’s Guide to Understand and Address Toxic Stress

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5/2015

Understanding Toxic Stress and Resilience: Video SeriesOngoing research continues to show us how adversity and toxic stress in early childhood can have a negative impact throughout a person’s life. Toxic stress can impact a child’s health, behavior, and ability to learn. These two videos appeal to Head Start staff and health care professionals. They are designed to help them understand what toxic stress is, what it does to a person, and easy things to do to help prevent it.

Source: Early Childhood Learning and Knowledge Center, National Center on Health

Available at: http://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/hslc/tta-system/health/mental-health/trauma/toxic-stress.html