Linkages Between Child Care and Mental Health: Challenges and Opportunities

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Linkages Between Child Care and Mental Health
Challenges and Opportunities

• Jane Knitzer, Ed.D.
• Child Care Research Consortium Meeting
• March 9, 2005

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Why Link? The Challenge from a Child Care
Perspective

• Field-based concerns are high
• Prevalence data supports interventions
• Research evidence supports intervention
• Social and emotional skills are foundational for
  early school success
• Poor quality child care is linked to more
  behavioral problems
• The mental health of child care providers matters
• The mental health of parents matters

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Demystifying Early Childhood Mental Health

• What is it?
• Age appropriate social, emotional and behavioral
  development and relationships
• Whose problem is it?
• The child? The provider? The fit? The family?
  All?
• What can help?
• In most instances, the best way to help young
  children is to help those closest to them BUT
• Young children can have serious disorders

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Goals Risks for ECMH/Linkages

• Goals
• Promote school readiness,
• Build capacity and competence in child care
  providers/teachers
• Support families
• Identify and get specialized help to children and
  their families
• Risks
• Rush to the clinical

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Practice Policy Perspectives

• Most linkages have been with centers
• Intervention Strategies
• MH consultants (program child different
  models)
• Classroom based assessments (DECA)
• Curricula (e.g. Tools of the Mind)
• Growing body of knowledge about effective
  child-focused interventions in ece settings
• Implementation challenges

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Research Perspectives

• Limited high quality research on state and
  community interventions
• Despite limitations, patterns in findings
• Language improvement
• Decreases in aggression (or less increase than
  in controls)
• Some change in parental expectations
• Few changes in child care provider behavior
  documented

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Opportunities Questions

• What is the pay off
• for children, providers, programs (short-term,
  longer term)?
• What are most effective intervention strategies
• for which children, which providers, which
  settings?
• What infrastructure is needed to promote
  evidence-based practice ?

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Selected Resources

• www.csefel.uicu.edu Center for Social and
  Emotional Foundations for Early Learning
• www.childcareresearch.org Research Connections
• www.nccp.org National Center for Children in
  Poverty

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If you would like more information, contact
Jane Knitzer at jk340_at_columbia.edu Or visit the
NCCP web site www.nccp.org