Professor Paris & Colleagues Call for Better Training for Infant/Early Childhood Mental Health
Infant and early childhood mental health (IECMH)—an interdisciplinary field dedicated to advancing understanding of early relationships, socioemotional development, and cultural and contextual influences on caregiving—offers essential tools for social workers to support the well-being of infants, toddlers, preschoolers, and their families. Even though social worker Selma Fraiberg was a founder of the field, and social workers are central to the work of assessment and intervention with young children and their caregivers in many settings, few schools of social work offer training in IECMH, and few social workers are familiar with its core principles, scholarship, and intervention approaches.”
– Tova Walsh, Ruth Paris, et al. “Locating Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health at the Heart of Social Work”
In a renewed effort to both improve graduate-level social work education and social work’s focus on the importance of early childhood for lifelong health, Associate Professor Ruth Paris from Boston University School of Social Work, Assistant Professor Tova Walsh from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and other leading social work scholars recently published a paper calling on educational institutions to create an IECMH concentration in their social work programs. IECMH, a holistic approach to treating children by understanding their familial relationships, community, and broader social impacts such as systemic racism, provides social workers with a stronger, more effective foundation with which to approach children and families in micro, mezzo and macro practice. The paper, Locating Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health at the Heart of Social Work, proposes that better IECMH curriculum in social work graduate programs will produce more informed and better equipped social workers across child and family careers.
Building a Rigorous Skill Set to Promote Physical, Mental, Social, and Emotional Health in Children & Families
Much of IECMH addresses social workers who work directly with parents and child caregivers to build the adults’ capacity and skills supporting the healthy social and emotional development of children. “Effective IECMH practice requires specialized knowledge and skills,” the paper reports. Such skills should cover:
- Pregnancy and early parenthood
- Infant and young child development and behavior
- Relationship-focused assessment and therapeutic practice
- Family relationships and dynamics
- Attachment, separation, trauma, and loss
- Psychotherapeutic and behavioral theories of change
- Disorders of infancy and early childhood
- Mental and behavioral disorders in adults
- Cultural competence
Through this interdisciplinary approach, IECMH covers social work careers in child welfare, home visiting, parenting interventions, among others.
Acknowledging an Urgent Need for IECMH Training
While IECMH strategies provide continually relevant guidance for social workers, the authors also point out that current events are especially applicable to practice, such as:
- The immigration crisis at US borders
- The opioid epidemic
- Common current structural factors (poverty, racism, healthcare disparities, etc.)
The connection made between current events and IECMH practice implies that by better preparing social workers who help children and families immediately affected by these issues, IECMH can improve children’s short and long-term developmental, social and psychological outcomes and help prevent potential negative effects later in life caused by these events.
Increasing Equity & Access to IECMH Training Across the Social Work Field
Many social workers with advanced degrees do not receive IECMH training from their graduate programs, but rather through training covered by their employer or at their own expense post-graduation. This gap in education can leave Master of Social Work (MSW) graduates entering the field less prepared to handle complex cases in child welfare and other family-focused careers, particularly those who can’t afford the cost or the time of additional training. “The most effective way to expand access [to IECMH training] is through inclusion and social work education,” the authors propose. “Professional training at all levels often does not match what is necessary for the provision of mental health services to infants and young children as well as research focused on their needs. The IECMH framework should be integrated into curricula such that all students of social work receive training in IECMH principles.”
Currently, only some MSW programs such as Boston University School of Social Work (BUSSW) offer a course in IECMH, and even fewer educational institutions offer an IECMH concentration. Boston University has also recently launched the interdisciplinary Institute for Early Childhood Well-Being, where early childhood scholars in social work and disciplines such as public health, psychology, medicine, education and others will promote IECMH through community-engaged research and education. The EC Institute will offer social work students an additional BU venue where they can participate in research and develop skills in working with young children and families.
In order to promote IECMH in schools, Paris and her colleagues in conjunction with the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) developed a IECMH curriculum guide for all MSW programs, which will be published in Fall 2021/Winter 2022. By incorporating these practices into social work programs, social workers will be better equipped to promote health and well-being and prevent untoward outcomes in families with infants and children.