Our Philosophy & Goals Based on strong belief that there is an important role for highly trained infant mental health specialists to provide services to programs that serve infants, toddlers, and their families
Intended for advanced practitioners in mental health and related early childhood fields
Key components: assessment, differential diagnosis, intervention, and academic scholarship
Includes intensive clinical experience with infants and young children, extensive didactic seminars on core issues of infant mental health, and clinical supervision in groups and individually
Train professionals who teach and consult to infant programs and their staff as well as conduct direct intervention
Expected to work in academic and training settings, teach, supervise, consult, and pursue clinical research
Taught through didactic seminars, group supervision of clinical cases, and “hands on” experience conducting assessments
Includes exposure to standardized infant and parent-infant assessment tools, discussing observations of infants and their families, and viewing videotapes of sessions with infants
Use a family-centered and family-strengths perspective as well as understand the difficulties, challenges, and disorders that afflict infants and their families diagnostically
Use DC:0-3R to assess all areas of functioning (e.g., emotional, developmental, biologic, temperamental, and interactional capabilities) for a thorough evaluation of the child and family
In-depth training on the numerous problems seen in infancy through didactic seminars, presentations by visiting experts, and clinical group supervision
Focus on what is known about the cause and phenomenology of disorders, what assessment tools and pathognomonoic signs can help identify a disorder, and what is known about the natural history and treatment experiences of infants with various problems
Actively involved in planning and evaluating seminar curricula
Expected to become critical consumers of clinical and developmental research, and the research information is integrated and applied to interventions and philosophical thinking about infants and infant mental health
Opportunities also available to pursue clinical research training