Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation | Kidango

Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation

Empowering Human Potential of Adults and Children

Within every human being lies potential ready to be expressed. One way we create environments that support teachers and the young children and families they serve is to realize their unique potential is through early childhood mental health consultation (ECMHC). Recognizing the adults in the child’s daily life are their most powerful influence, we place specially trained mental health consultants at our centers to support the teaching teams and families. The consultants work with these adults to create and sustain environments, interactions and experiences that promote positive mental health, buffer the effects of toxic stress and trauma, and bring out the most optimal development and learning of each unique child in their care.

 

Supports the Well-Being of the Adult Caregivers

The mental health and well-being of children are intricately linked to the well-being of their adult caregivers. Teachers and parents can be affected by significant stress, trauma, and adversity while still carrying on in their role as caretaker to others. ECMHC creates a space and opportunity for the teaching teams and parents to gain support for their own personal mental health, self-care and receive assistance with the stressors and difficulties associated with the ongoing caregiving and teaching of young children especially those showing emotional, behavioral and developmental difficulties, or other individual differences. Through this support, they are better able to maintain their own well-being and provide the highest quality of care.

Promotes Powerful Outcomes that have Lasting Impact

Consultation works. Results include:

 

  • Enhancement of all relationships involved in the care setting creating a powerfully safe web of adults available to support children
  • Increased recognition and an effectiveness in response to the effects of toxic stress and adversity upon adults and children bringing forth healing and resilience
  • Reduced overall work-related stress for ECE staff as well as turnover, burnout, compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma by offering emotional support to the teaching staff to address the impact of the work on them
  • Strengthened staff confidence and competence in dealing with troubling or difficult behaviors of young children in their care

 

  • Reduction in rate of expulsion of children and families from programs due to home/school conflict and challenging behaviors of children
  • Improvement in classroom climate resulting in more positive interactions between teachers and children and well as between teachers and families, as well as fewer negative exchanges

 

The accumulation of these benefits results in the improved overall quality of early care and education settings. The most significant impact of early childhood mental health consultation is the deeper and stronger capacities cultivated in each staff person will touch not only the lives in their current care but also all the children and families they will touch in the teaching career here at Kidango and beyond.

Our Approach

Early childhood mental health consultation (ECMHC) is an evidence-based practice with three defining features:

 

  1. Ongoing, weekly conversations and dialogue involving the teaching teams and their consultant
  2. Interactive process drawing upon differing perspectives, strengths and resources to problem solve
  3. Adult focus aimed to build the capacity of staff, programs, and families

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