Integrating evidence-based practices into early childhood mental health clinics: A dynamic approach to strengthening the resilience of children birth to five and families

Abstract

This paper describes a dynamic process of workforce development, implementation, and evaluation of evidence-based practices (EBPs) within an early childhood mental health (ECMH) network serving children birth to five and their families. The key feature of an effective structure and multi-year process to train clinical service providers in evidence-based practices is the capacity building cycle: Assess, Select, Train, Evaluate. The New York City (NYC) ECMH network assessed the capacity and competencies of early childhood clinical practitioners and selected evidence-based practices and models that are: 1) appropriate for the birth to five population, 2) dyadic or family based, and 3) trauma-informed and/or strengths-based. We describe the evaluation, needs assessments, and best practices that support the effective use of evidence-based practices. It is important to flexibly respond to the needs of the community when selecting evidence-based practices, paying particular attention to equity issues. Considerations to note are that the few EBPs available for this birth to five population are costly, have a limited number of trainers, may not have a train-thetrainer model, and rarely have these EBPs been evaluated in multilingual or diverse U.S. communities. The success of implementing a multi-year cycle in NYC lies in having a funded training center closely linked to the workforce.

Review: Improving access to mental health interventions for children from birth to five years: A Scoping Review

“…Ensuring the sustainability of IMH services and programs. The fourth thematic finding highlighted the importance of sustainable IMH services and programs, identified in three studies (Brophy-Herb et al, 2001;Kadik et al, 2020;Rodriguez et al, 2018). To maximise the access and reach of IMH services to infants with mental health difficulties and families, these articles argued for high quality evidence-based IMH interventions and specialist training for the IMH workforce.…”

“…Many included studies were conducted among families and child‐caregiver dyads. Eighteen of the articles reported on samples of infants and children across the 0‐ to 6‐year age range (Berg, 2012, 2016; Bohr et al., 2021; Brophy‐Herb, Schiffman, McKelvey, Cunningham‐DeLuca, & Hawver, 2001; Cheng et al., 2007; Dawson, Richards, & Frost, 2017; Facchini, Martin, & Downing, 2016; Farley & Whipple, 2017; Farley, Whipple, & Riebschleger, 2020; Fox & Holtz, 2009; Fox, Mattek, & Gresl, 2013; Hunter, Glazebrook, & Ranger, 2020; Kadik, Shaff, Okeke, & Berger, 2020; Kennedy, Ball, & Barlow, 2017; Klawetter, Glaze, Sward, & Frankel, 2020; Marcus et al., 2017; Molnar et al., 2018). The study samples of infants and children under 6 years ranged from 1 (Berg, 2016) to 237 (Fox et al., 2013).…”

“…Articles included both prospective and retrospective data. The remaining 14 articles (Berg, 2016; Dawson et al., 2017; Kadik et al., 2020; Macdonald et al., 2005; Marcellus & Shahram, 2017; Marcus et al., 2017; Masoe & Bush, 2009; Ofonedu et al., 2017; Preston et al., 2019; Rodriguez et al., 2018; Segal et al., 2018; Shea et al., 2016; Taylor et al., 2019) focussed on practices and research aimed at improving infant mental health.…”

“…The majority of included studies were conducted in the United States (Brophy‐Herb et al., 2001; Farley et al., 2020; Farley & Whipple, 2017; Fox et al., 2013; Fox & Holtz, 2009; Kadik et al., 2020; Klawetter et al., 2020; Lyon & Budd, 2010; Marcus et al., 2017; Molnar et al., 2018; Ofonedu et al., 2017; Rodriguez et al., 2018; Shea et al., 2016, 2020), followed by South Africa (Berg, 2012, 2016; Dawson et al., 2017; Preston et al., 2019), Australia (Macdonald et al., 2005; Segal et al., 2018; Taylor et al., 2019), the United Kingdom (Hunter et al., 2020; Kennedy et al., 2017), Canada (Bohr et al., 2021; Marcellus & Shahram, 2017), Italy (Facchini et al., 2016), Japan (Cheng et al., 2007), and New Zealand (Masoe & Bush, 2009).…”

“…Nine studies (Farley et al., 2020; Macdonald et al., 2005; Masoe & Bush, 2009; Preston et al., 2019; Rodriguez et al., 2018; Segal et al., 2018; Shea et al., 2016, 2020; Taylor et al., 2019) included the perspectives of clinicians were based on those clinicians' experience in providing infant and child mental health‐based programs interventions to families. Three studies (Kadik et al., 2020; Marcellus & Shahram, 2017; Marcus et al., 2017) sought to identify, describe and evaluate infant or child mental health‐based programs through other means.…”