Take Home Messages
- Promoting mental health for children, families, and staff has been an integral part of the Head Start Program since it began in 1965.
- Key influences on the design, integration, and delivery of mental health services have been influenced by:
- Head Start Program Requirements and Performance Standards (1998)
- An array of Head Start funded review, research, and publications
- New understanding emerging from the science of child development
- Training and technical assistance resources bringing research to practice
- A child can benefit most from a comprehensive, interdisciplinary program to foster development and remedy any developmental concerns.
- Parents are the primary educators of their children and must be directly involved in the program.
- The well-being of children is inextricably linked to the well-being of the entire family.
- Partnerships with other agencies and organizations in the community are essential to meeting family needs.
- Comprehensive
- Wellness
- Promotion, prevention, and early intervention
- Child-focused
- Family-centered
- Community-based
- Culturally responsive
- Defining early childhood mental health consultation
- Establishing the evidence base
- Determining what makes consultation effective
- Capacity building for delivering and evaluating consultation
- Fostering the social-emotional development of all young children in the program;
- Targeting specific factors that place young children at risk for developing behavior problems;
- Building the capacity of staff and families to implement evidence-based interventions to reduce challenging behavior;
- Promoting adoption of program-wide strategies that integrate evidence-based promotion, prevention and intervention approaches to young children’s social-emotional development; and
- Incorporating research-based approaches to addressing staff and family well-being as essential ingredients in young children’s healthy social and emotional development.
- Leadership that values and supports mental health, has a clear vision of mental health consultation, and guides the planning and implementation of mental health services.
- Finding a prepared (knowledge, skills, and qualities) and effective consultant with training and experience that matches the program’s philosophy, needs, interests, and requirements
- Orienting the consultant to the Head Start and Early Head Start philosophy, program requirements, and the unique features and culture of the program and the community in which it operates.
- Building working relationships that are trusting, respectful, and reflective among administrators, staff, caregivers, and families.
- Knowledge and utilization of evidence-based and effective practices and strategies to promote social emotional development, prevent and intervene Partnerships with community resources and a continuum of mental health services and supports Resources to evaluate and sustain services, including financial or other support
- A self-study guide for consultants
- Best practice tutorials for consultants
- Implementation toolkits for consultants to use with families and staff
- A management and sustainability guide for program administrators
Consultation lasts when the program around it plans for it.
The Program Planning and Reflection Tool shows where your program stands in 12 to 15 minutes. Start the PPRT.
Want help acting on what it shows? Talk to our technical assistance team.
