Build the consultant workforce
This shelf helps anyone who staffs consultation in a single program or a state system. It holds role definitions, hiring guidance, MOUs, and the workforce landscape.
What's in this collection
This section explores the competencies, training, supervision, mentoring, and quality assurance systems needed to build a strong IECMHC workforce and deliver high-quality IECMHC services.
Workforce development planning
Program Planning and Reflection Tool (PPRT): This program-level online assessment tool helps users evaluate progress in key IECMHC program implementation areas while providing guidance on how to put these elements into place. An entire domain is devoted to workforce and covers: recruiting & hiring, initial training, ongoing professional development, clinical/reflective supervision, service delivery support, and workforce retention.
Recruiting and hiring IECMH consultants
Hiring Guidance: This e-learning module is designed to support IECMHC program managers in the hiring process of IECMH consultants.
Training curriculum guidance
Curriculum Guidelines for Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation: Building on the CoE’s IECMHC Competencies, this resource helps programs create comprehensive training standards and content to develop a strong IECMH consultant workforce.
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.
Professional development resources
Foundational Modules: These eight modules are designed to support Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Consultants in their professional development, and can be viewed in any order.
Beyond the 101: IECMHC Lessons: This trio of online learning modules explores best practice in IECMHC with regard to equity, supporting infants and toddlers, and working with families in a meaningful and effective way.
Materials for field use
Teaching Tools for Young Children with Challenging Behavior: This resource is designed for use by teachers and offers easily accessible ideas and materials to support children in the classroom and other learning environments.
Consultant supervision, support, and retention
Sustaining IECMH Consultants in their Jobs: Once a mental health professional has been successfully recruited and trained to provide IECMHC services, a management team’s priority becomes retaining that now well-trained consultant.
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TemplateAgreement of PartnershipSample contract between SEP-CAP Head Start and partnering agency for mental health service provision. GuideBridging Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation to Direct Mental Health ServicesSupporting successful referrals is one of the core skill areas of mental health consultation. Mental health consultants are uniquely positioned to bridge consultees to needed direct mental health services. As infant and early childhood mental health professionals, consultants are aware of the powerful impact of the early years to a child’s healthy development. The strategies in this resource brief help to ensure a successful referral. GuideCompetencies: Infant/Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation Self-assessmentConsultant Self-Assessment and Resources CrosswalkThe Early Childhood Mental Health Consultant Self-Assessment and its Resources Crosswalk help mental health professionals and consultants find the right professional development resources on this site.Resource Crosswalk GuideCurriculum Guidelines for Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health ConsultationBuilding on the IECMHC Competencies, this resource helps programs develop training standards and content to build their MHC workforce. Specific domains, content areas, and training tools are outlined. HandoutDeep Breathing ToolkitDeveloping and Implementing a Programwide Vision for Effective Mental Health ConsultationThis in-depth guide provides guidance and support for early childhood program administrators with respect to ensuring IECMHC in implemented in coordination with a wide vision for the center. It includes specific guidance on programmatic elements of IECMHC from hiring to supporting consultants. ReportDigging Deeper: De-Colonizing Our Understanding and Practice of Reflective Supervision Through a Racial Equity Lens HandoutHow Child Care Programs Can Support Staff Affected by Substance UseIn partnership with Illuminate Colorado and the University of California, San Francisco’s Child Trauma Research Program, the Thrive Center developed a set of handouts tailored for early care and education (ECE) settings. These handouts, available in English and Spanish, explore substance use and childhood trauma, and how ECE professionals can support the children and families they serve who are affected by these challenges. IECMH Consultants can share these short, colorful resources with their consultees to address these sensitive topics in an accessible, compassionate way. This specific handout explains how child care programs can support staff affected by substance use.How Child Care Programs Can Support Staff Affected by Substance Use (Spanish) HandoutHow to Support a Mental Health Consultant Who Is New to Your Tribal CommunityThis resource provides strategies for tribal communities and/or programs that are starting work with a mental health consultant who is new to the community. GuideIECMHC Training Qualifications GridAcross several practice environments, this resource lists the qualifications, training, and supervision necessary to function competently as a MHC. Webinars and eventsIllinois Association for Infant Mental Health: Centering DEIBJ principles in WorkforceWe look at the Illinois Association for Infant Mental Health’s (ILAIMH) workforce development system, focusing the IECMH Competencies and learning how they have been revised to inform thinking and advance DEIBJ (diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging and justice) principles in practice. A brief case is presented that brings to life these abstract ideas and illustrates how the Competencies are used in everyday practice, as well as in ILAIMH’s Credential process and Reflective Practice Groups to advance learning and reflection. ILAIMH developed and designed their IECMH Competencies to illustrate the ongoing interactions of five Core Competencies: 1.0 self-knowledge/reflective practice, 2.0 culture and diversity, 3.0 family and community systems, and 4.0 infant/child development in the context of relationships, with the understanding that all competencies are embedded in and informed by 5.0 professional ethics. This unique intersecting framework gives practitioners a way to hold multiple factors in mind as they think about and reflect on their work with infants/young children/families, care providers, colleagues, communities, and systems. The ILAIMH Competencies are a tool for developing awareness, a framework for professional development in the field, allowing for new learning and the integration of complex ideas across multiple disciplines. Whatever the context, the 5 core competencies occur simultaneously and reflect the complexity and originality of IECMH work.