Early Childhood Mental Health Consultant
CurrentECMH Consultant provides an indirect service that aims to build the capacity of staff, families, programs, and systems to prevent, identify, and reduce the impact of mental health problems among children from birth to age 6 and their families. Mental health consultants support the needs of all children by giving information to the adults who care for them on topics such as typical development, social and emotional skills, trauma informed care, problem solving, and preventing or managing challenging behaviors among other things. Their primary role is to support the developing capacities of caregivers to promote young children’s healthy social and emotional development. Their services often result in a reduction of challenging behaviors while also aiding in helping children make friends, learn to talk about and manage their emotions, improve their problem solving skills, and aim toward overall increased performance in school. Mental health consultants help adults learn how to:Help children show, manage, and talk about many different feelingsHelp children build strong relationships with adults and other childrenEncourage children to explore their environmentsBetter understand each child and how to support their individual needsMental health consultants can also support children who may struggle with worries, anger, problem solving, sharing or controlling their feelings or behaviors, making friends, and difficulty in their environments. Mental health consultants help teachers and families learn how to handle these challenges and support positive behaviors.
