Infant Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation and the Pyramid Model
Infant Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation
Infant Early Childhood Mental Health Consultants work with early childhood care and education programs throughout Utah to build early childhood educators’ capacity and skills needed to facilitate the healthy social and emotional development of children in their care.
- Consultants provide on-site child and program-focused observations, feedback, and reflection. They connect educators and families to community resources and referrals on an individual basis.
- Child-focused consultation: Focuses on strengthening the child relationship through responsive and attuned practices, creating positive learning environments, promoting targeted social and emotional skills, and identifying nurturing ways educators can respond to behavior they find challenging.
- Program-focused consultation: Concentrates on improving the universal quality of an early childhood program to better support the social and emotional well-being of all children.
Types of Consultations
Child and Family- Focused
Supports Child, Families, and Caregivers
Child and family-focused consultation addresses the factors that contribute to an individual child's or family' challenges in the early childhood setting It is often initiated by concerns about a child's behavior.
Early Childhood Professional-Focused
Supports Early Childhood Workforce
Early childhood professional-focused consultation focuses on the wellness of teachers, home visitors,
childcare directors, program leaders, and early intervention providers. The consultant uses reflective
practices with providers to explore how their personal/professional attitudes, behaviors, and practices
influence their work with young children, families, and their colleagues.
Classroom-Focused
Supports Classroom Providers
Classroom-focused consultation focuses on issues that impact more than one child or family. The consultant
works with early childhood professionals on their overall approach to support young children's social-emotional
development and effectively address challenging behavior.
Program-Focused
Supports Program Leadership and Staff
Programmatic consultation focuses on the program as a whole. The consultant supports the program
leadership team, administrators and staff, in collaboration with the external coach, to explore effective
strategies, practices, and policies that support children and families.
Pyramid Model and IECMHC
Pyramid Model and IECMHC (PDF)