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Infant Mental Health Endorsement - 1

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.

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.

The infant mental health endorsement corresponding to education, skills and experience, includes four categories:

• Category I - Infant Family Associate
• Category II - Infant and Family Specialist
• Category III - Infant Mental Health Specialist
• Category IV - Infant Mental Health Mentor

Next: What is the value of a competency-based system of Endorsement?