Clinical Formation Initiative in Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health - The Center for Autism and Early Childhood Mental Health at Montclair State University and the YCS Institute for Infant and Preschool Mental Health) propose the Clinical Formation Initiative in Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health to the Department of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration for consideration in the FY22 Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health funding opportunity announcement (SM-22-006). The purpose of the Clinical Formation Initiative in Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health (CFI) is to saturate communities with a quality promotional and preventative support system which centralizes early relational health and to ensure equitable access to an infant and early childhood mental health treatment workforce who are competent, confident and capable to ameliorate relational and emotional concerns for children aged birth to 12, so as to ensure family well-being in the most formative years of life and reduce future severe emotional disturbance.
The target population of the Clinical Formation Initiative will be infants, children and their families, aged from pregnancy through 12 years, and the workforce that provides family support services and clinical treatment services to these families, in the counties of Essex, Hudson and Passaic in New Jersey. Goals of the Clinical Formation Initiative in Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health include: (1) To improve outcomes for children from birth up to 12 years of age at risk of developing or being diagnosed with a relational disruption, emotional disturbance and/or developmental concerns; (2) To improve the professional competency of the multidisciplinary early relational health workforce to provide promotion, prevention and treatment services to children and families from pregnancy through age 12 years (3) To evaluate the implementation and impact of the program for replication and sustainability in additional counties. To meet these goals, the CFI will engage in five activities: (1) Provision of culturally and developmentally appropriate promotion, prevention, early intervention, and treatment services to the pregnancy through age 12 population; (2) provide the short-term, external model of Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation already operating in New Jersey, known as SEFI Support; (3) provide training to the promotional and preventative child and family-serving professional community, also known as the early relational health workforce including the original 21-hour curriculum, Keeping Babies and Children in Mind, which has been operating in our state since 2012; (4) provide specialized training and supervision for mental health clinicians in infant and early childhood mental health, including specific training in promising and evidence-based practices and models for prevention, early intervention, and treatment, with particular focus on children experiencing trauma or other adverse childhood experiences including specific training in evidence-based models of intervention that address trauma (Child-Parent Psychotherapy and Attachment, Regulation and Competency), and (5) the development of Sustainability Plan and replication plan for the future.
We anticipate that over 400 more families will be served in clinical practice, over 500 multidisciplinary professionals will experience training in IECMH promotion and prevention, over 20 programs per year will benefit from IECMH Consultation and at least 60 clinicians within the Children's System of Care will learn clinical practice that addresses the birth through age 6 population.
