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| Endorsement Overview | |
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Infant Mental Health Endorsement Overview |
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Introduction: Infant mental health is a relatively new field encompassing multiple disciplines and levels of service delivery including promotion, prevention, early intervention and treatment. Currently there is not a nationally acknowledged framework detailing required infant mental health competencies for early childhood professionals working with infants, young children and their families. To ensure the high quality of services provided to children and families a system needs to be in place to qualify and support professionals. One way to create such system is by establishing an endorsement process to ensure the competence of professionals. Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health in collaboration with over 100 members over a period of several years developed the Competency Guidelines which are designed to support and enhance culturally sensitive, relationship focused practice within the framework of infant mental health. The details of each knowledge/skills area are very specifically described at each level. The Competency Guidelines are available to Endorsement applicants after a preliminary application is submitted.
What is an Endorsement Process? An
endorsement in Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health is a verifiable
process that recognizes the knowledge and training among professionals
across disciplines within an organized system of culturally sensitive,
relationship-focused learning and work experiences that promote infant
mental health.
• Level I - Infant Family Associate To learn more about the Endorsement levels, click here. Why be endorsed? "In the last month, I have completed three major goals: NAEYC Accreditation, Infant Mental Health Endorsement and my Masters in Early Childhood Education. Of the three, the most significant for me personally is the Infant Mental Health Endorsement as it emphasizes development from conception, birth and the early years, especially the critical period of infancy." ~Jane Robinson, MS, IMH-E® (I) "It is nice, after all these years in practice as an infant mental health specialist, and all the 'unofficial' access I've had the honor/privilege to receive through multiple trainings, classes and workshops from the experts, to formalize this into an actual certificate and endorsement now that I'm sixty. It is quite lovely to receive the formal and official recognition through the Endorsement process." ~Carol Noddings Eichinger, MS, LPC, IMH-E® (IV) Wisconsin Alliance for Infant Mental Health (WI-AIMH) would like to thank our Endorsement partners that have financially supported our work to improve the lives of infants, toddlers and their families through the WI-AIMH Endorsement System.
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