Mental Health Consultations in Early Childhood Education Programs

Strategies to improve the well-being of families and staff

Mental health consultation is an essential strategy for improving the well-being of the children, families, and staff in Head Start programs everywhere. While Head Start programs are required to secure consistent and sufficient access to mental health consultation services for children and families, in practice, the growing need often outweighs access to high-quality mental health services.

The good news is that Head Start programs across the country are committed to discovering new ways to meet the individual and unique needs of their communities by improving and innovating their mental health consultation services. Programs are digging deeper into their data, testing ideas, implementing new strategies, shifting funds, developing new mental health teams, and pursuing other exciting methods to ensure their children, families, and staff have the support and services they need.

NHSA has dedicated this Year of Whole Health month to sharing these ideas, strategies, resources, and best practices to help Head Start leaders incorporate successful mental health services for their communities.

What did we learn?

1. Effective early childhood mental health consultation services should be culturally sensitive by recognizing and acknowledging the many different views, feelings, behaviors, and ways of communicating that many people share. They should also be family focused by valuing individual family’s experiences, strengths, and concerns, to ensure a strong partnership between a mental health consultant or caregiver and the child and his or her family.
2. Early childhood mental health consultation can look different from program to program. Understanding and identifying the unique needs of your children, families, staff and community is the first step to developing a mental health consultation model that works best for your program.
3. Be sure to provide appropriate and comprehensive professional development, training, and ongoing support to all staff members who will be involved in the mental health consultation model. Addressing individual staff mental health needs is a vital component of effective mental health consultation models in Head Start because when staff succeed, children and families are able to succeed.
4. When measuring the impact of your mental health consultation program, be sure to measure not just child and family level outcomes, but also staff and program level outcomes to fully understand the comprehensive impact of your program and to identify opportunities for improvement.

Where can you learn more about how to improve and innovate your mental health consultation services?

1. Check out the Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation (IECMHC) Toolbox from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to find resources, tools, models, and research to help you implement new ideas.
2. Explore through the Center for Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation website to access information and resources made specifically for Head Start staff, families, mental health consultants, and administrators.
3. View and participate in the Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation (IECMHC) learning module on the ECLKC website to gain a better understanding of the roles IECMHC can play in the Head Start setting through realistic scenarios and short video clips.
4. Explore through the National Center for Pyramid Model Innovations website to learn more about implementing a sustainable system of the Pyramid Model for Supporting Social Emotional Competence in Infants and Young Children (Pyramid Model) within your Head Start program. This model has a strong focus on promoting social, emotional, and behavioral outcomes for children through family engagement, appropriate and evidence-based practices, data use, mental health consultation, and inclusion strategies.

In May, which is also Mental Health Awareness Month, NHSA hosted a webinar, Effective and Innovative Mental Health Consultation Models in Head Start. Through this on-demand learning opportunity, we heard from infant and early childhood mental health experts about the importance of collecting and analyzing data to understand your program and community needs for mental health services and ideas for how to utilize mental health consultation models to meet those needs. This webinar also featured Head Start program directors who shared their challenges and successes in implementing mental health consultation models and services to support the needs of their children, families, and staff.

To access the webinar recording or any other resources from the Year of Whole Health, NHSA members can sign into our online communication platform, The Block, and view this month’s webinar recording and many others. If you have questions about access to The Block or NHSA’s membership, please send a message to TheBlock@nhsa.org.

If you have any questions about this topic or any other topic within NHSA’s Year of Whole Health Initiative, please contact Sarah Neil at sneil@nhsa.org.