Mental Health Consultation

As one of the five required community-level interventions for Project LAUNCH, mental health consultation can be a powerful tool for supporting young children’s social and emotional health and development. Project LAUNCH programs have flexibility in implementing early childhood mental health consultation (ECMHC) that focuses on interventions in early education programs or consultation based in primary care settings. Current Project  LAUNCH programs are using a variety of approaches, including approaches that combine ECMHC with primary care–based interventions.

Early childhood mental health consultation (ECMHC) is provided by a professional consultant with mental health expertise working collaboratively with early childhood education staff, programs, and/or families. Studies show that ECMHC improves the ability of staff, programs, and families to prevent, identify, treat, and reduce the effect of mental health problems among children from birth through age eight. Through this indirect approach to fostering social and emotional well-being, early childhood settings achieve positive outcomes for infants and young children.

Project LAUNCH grantees using ECMHC draw on a variety of research-based strategies to improve child outcomes, including engaging skilled mental health practitioners to:

• Train staff on conducting behavioral and other developmental screening and assessment tools and using results for classroom planning
• Build early education staff capacities to create classroom environments that support healthy social and emotional development
• Observe children in the classroom when social and emotional and/or behavioral concerns are identified
• Support teachers and parents in using strategies to promote children’s positive behavioral changes
• Provide one-on-one therapy (if qualified) or refer children to experienced child therapists
• Identify alternate child care placements for children who require more support than is available in their early education settings

Learn more about ECHMC by listening to a presentation on ECMHC by staff from the Georgetown University Center for Child and Human Development.

Mental Health Consultation in Primary Care Settings

Primary care settings that provide mental health consultation increase children’s and families’ capacity to access appropriate mental health services. In these interventions, mental health clinicians are employed as staff or consultants by the primary care practice to:

• Reduce barriers by developing trusting relationships with families to address parent concerns about a child’s development, behavior, emotional state, or social relationships and skills
• Assess children and families and provide treatment when indicated or help make referrals to community-based services and providers for appropriate care
• Provide telephone consultation or case conferencing with early education, early intervention, or other providers to promote coordinated care and treatment for children