Equity is part of all our work
This collection holds the equity toolkit, our equity webinar seasons, and resources on bias and on Tribal Nations. Culturally responsive consultation is competent consultation.
What's in this collection
Equity is a central component of infant and early childhood mental health consultation (IECMHC). Every individual who is part of the IECMHC system has an important role to play in promoting fair, positive, and equitable learning experiences for all children and families.
Program planning
Program Planning and Reflection Tool (PPRT): An entire domain is devoted to equity and covers: developing a program-wide strategic plan; staff training; service population & service delivery; reflective supervision; and data collection.
Online trainings and webinars
Equity in IECMHC Webinar Series (2023 to 2024): This series of webinars introduces a set of resources to support infant and early childhood mental health consultants and supervisors to strengthen cultural responsiveness in IECMHC for children and families in Tribal, African American, Latin American, and Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander communities (AANHPI).
Toolkits and resource collections
IECMHC Racial Equity Toolkit: The CoE’s IECMHC Racial Equity Toolkit is a collection of videos, tools, and resources that can help consultation systems leaders and all IECMHC practitioners build capacity in understanding race and systemic racism, bias, and culturally responsive practice and meaningfully embed equity in their programs and practice.
Resource briefs
Promoting Black Joy and Countering Bias through Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation: This is a companion resource to the 2023 webinar, “Countering Bias and Promoting Black Joy in Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation,” which is part of the CoE’s Equity in IECMHC Webinar series.
Assessments
Cultural and Linguistic Competence Self-Assessment Checklists: These tools are designed to assist managers and administrators in assessing the extent to which they demonstrate integration of cultural and linguistic competence into values, attitudes, communication styles, and the physical environment.
National reports and position statements
Diversity-Informed Tenets for Work with Infants, Children, and Families: The Diversity-Informed Tenets are guiding principles created to encourage the infant mental health field to intentionally and mindfully engage in standards of practice that promote and strive for a just and equitable society.
Working with Tribal communities and Nations
IECMHC Resources for Tribal Nations: This webpage provides a collection of resources to support programs, local governments and tribal nations in creating better services and systems for infants, toddlers and young children and their families through an Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation program.
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Webinars and eventsTransforming Narratives: Storytelling for Equity, Reflection, and EmpowermentStorytelling can transform IECMH Consultation by deepening reflective capacity, connections, and resilience. Each of us is full of stories worth telling. What, when and how we choose to tell stories matters. Join us to experience claiming and sharing your own story as a reflective and connective practice. Webinars and eventsUnveiling the Essential IECMHC Activities for Promoting Equity and RelationshipsThis workshop showcases the results of a consensus-building study that defined the core IECMHC activities, emphasizing relationships and equity. Using the Delphi method, experts reached a consensus on essential elements and activities of IECMHC, yielding a list of five essential elements and 27 activities. Panelists rated them, achieving an 80% consensus for all elements and most activities. The resulting Essential IECMHC Activities list guides practitioners, integrating consultation's "what" and "how" with a consultative stance. This list promotes equity and clarity in services. The workshop will present findings and encourage attendees to implement equity-promoting actions in their practices, supporting diverse infants and children's social-emotional well-being. Overall, it offers a deep dive into IECMHC activities and their role in equity. Webinars and eventsUsing Qualitative Data to Elevate Stakeholder Voices in Virginia’s ECMHC PilotThis workshop explores how qualitative research and evaluation can promote equity in early childhood mental health consultation (ECMHC). Often when programs and services are designed, they do not draw on lived experiences of the communities they serve which continues to promote deficit ideas about children, families, and their communities, particularly for children and families of color (O'Cathain et al., 2019). This workshop will show how qualitative research can strengthen programs and services by incorporating the voices of the communities that they are designed for. VDOE allocated federal relief dollars to fund an ECMHC pilot in early care and education (ECE) classrooms during the 2022-2023 school year in Virginia with three key objectives. The pilot was to aid ECE teachers in supporting children’s social-emotional needs in response to COVID-19, prevent suspensions and expulsions, and explore the feasibility of expanding the pilot to an eventual statewide ECMHC model (Partee et al, 2023). To understand implementation of the Virginia ECMHC pilot, we collected data using both qualitative and quantitative methods. In this presentation we will share findings and experiences from the qualitative strand of the study, specifically focusing on the insights gathered through video-cued focus groups and interviews with teachers, program directors, and families of children who received ECMHC services. Webinars and eventsWebinar: Centering Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Children and Families to Combat Racial Bias and Promote Connection and Belonging in IECMHCThis is the third in the series of resources to support infant and early childhood mental health consultants and supervisors to strengthen cultural responsiveness in IECMHC for children and families in Tribal, African American, Latine, and Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander communities (AANHPI). This third resource focuses on the importance of combating anti-AANHPI bias and promoting connection & belonging for IECMH consultants, supervisors, and leaders working with AANHPI children, families, and communities. Webinars and eventsWebinar: Centering Latin American children, families, and communities through an anti-racist, trauma-informed, and culturally-responsive lens in IECMHCThis is the second in the series of resources to support infant and early childhood mental health consultants and supervisors to strengthen cultural responsiveness in IECMHC for children and families in Tribal, African American, Latin American, and Asian American and Pacific Islander communities. This resource focuses on the importance of anti-racist, trauma-informed, and culturally-responsive practices for IECMH consultants, supervisors, and leaders working with Latin American children, families, and communities. Webinars and eventsWebinar: Countering Bias and Promoting Black Joy in IECMHCThis webinar highlights strength-based strategies to support IECMH consultants and programs to create space for Black families to reclaim a sense of joy amid racial uprisings, a global pandemic, and increasing socioeconomic challenges. It provides a preview of the April 2023 Center of Excellence document: "Promoting Black Joy and Countering Bias through Infant and Early Childhood Consultation." This webinar highlights promising practices, aligned with the Revised IECMHC Competencies, that disrupt bias and foster joy for Black children to reduce disparities and improve child outcomes. Webinars and eventsWebinar: Creating Anti-Racist SpacesNow, more than ever it is important to address issues of race and bias in early childhood settings. Children notice race at a very early age and can begin to categorize people according to skin color. This webinar presents strategies for creating an anti-racist environment to promote the development of healthy racial identities. Webinars and eventsWebinar: Equity in IECMHC: Looking back, looking forwardThis webinar kicked off a new Equity in IECMHC webinar series, which the CoE also offered in 2020 and 2021. This event featured a panelist of practitioners who are meaningfully advancing the work of equity in IECMHC in programs, policies, and practice to support the social emotional wellbeing of infants and young children. This webinar also offered a preview of subsequent webinars in the series. Webinars and eventsWebinar: Infant and Early Childhood Consultation MessagingInfant and Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation (IECMHC) builds the capacity of child-serving systems to positively impact young children and their families’ long-term mental health outcomes. It is important to describe to stakeholders what IECMHC is and its benefits. When stakeholders are aware of IECMHC’s value in supporting mental health outcomes for young children and families, they can help expand, integrate, and sustain IECMHC broadly in child-serving systems. Presenters Kim Eithun, Linda Delimata, and Dawn Yazzie explain key IECMHC messaging concepts, how to create effective messages for stakeholders, and how to use the IECMHC infographic to explain what IECMHC is and how it's applied.