Infant Mental Health 101

Infant mental health (IMH) is a rapidly expanding field in South Carolina. IMH is a multidisciplinary field that aims to promote awareness of healthy social and emotional development, prevent the development of mental health concerns, and address symptoms of distress in young children and their caregivers when they do arise. 

This two-part series will start an introductory overview of infant mental health and the concepts that underlie all infant mental health work across the promotion/prevention/intervention spectrum.

It will then focus in on IMH intervention, illustrating core components such as assessing the parent-child relation and using the DC 0-5 Diagnostic system, and briefly introducing evidence-based interventions. The second part of the series will utilize a case-presentation to illustrate the concepts introduced in the first presentation. 

Objectives: 

• To define infant mental health and describe foundational principles related to infant mental practices.
• To review IMH best practices of the initial assessment of a child and caregiver prior to starting therapy services. 
• To introduce common IMH interventions such as Child-Parent Psychotherapy, Parent-Child Interaction Therapy, Circle of Security, and Preschool PTSD treatment. 
• To apply knowledge gained from presentation to a IMH case. 

 Presenter: 

Mackenzie is the Director of South Carolina's Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation Network. She earned her doctorate in Clinical Psychology from Antioch University New England. During graduate school she served in a leadership role in an applied research and evaluation group, focusing on projects that aimed to create trauma-informed systems of care for young children and their families. Mackenzie completed her postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Colorado Medical School Irving Harris Program in Child Development and Infant Mental Health and her pre-doctoral internship in infant mental health at Tulane University School of Medicine. Mackenzie has a strong passion for working with young children and their families and believes that it is imperative that all young children should have access to culturally sensitive, relationship-based, and trauma-informed care. She has trained in and served families using several evidence-based, relationship-focused assessments and treatments. She has a particular enthusiasm for providing services to young children and families in the child welfare system and building systems of care for child-serving systems through training, reflective consultation, and policy work.

*Time spent at this event counts toward IMHE® and/or ECMHE® Training  or Renewal requirements. We recommend consulting the Competency Guidelines associated with your Endorsement® category to confirm. Please contact SCIMHA's Endorsement Coordinator at endorsement@scimha.org with any questions.