The field of infant-family and early childhood mental health addresses a continuum of family-centered, culturally sensitive, and developmentally appropriate services that include:

• Promotion: Services and supports that recognize the central importance of early relationships on brain development, learning, and social-emotional development of all children.
• Preventive Intervention: Services that mitigate effects of biological and psychosocial risks and that address potential early relationship challenges that have a documented impact on early development and the regulation of emotions and behavior.
• Treatment: Services that target infants, toddlers, and young children in significant distress or with clear symptoms that indicate a mental health disorder. Services address attachment, relationship problems, and the regulation of emotions and behavior. Specialized early mental health treatment services focus on the parent-child dyad, other primary child-caregiver relationships, and the circumstances that influence the quality of the relationships.

It is essential that all professionals working with infants, toddlers and preschoolers are grounded in the core knowledge and relationship-based training necessary to enhance the capacity of parents and other primary caregivers to support the social and emotional well-being of their children. Competencies are critical to this growing field

• To ensure that all California professionals working with very young children and their families at each part of the continuum are competent,
• To assist agencies in hiring the highest level staff, and
• To insure the highest quality of services.

Endorsement is a review mechanism for professionals who have documented their training and clinical practice work in a systematic way. A formal review of the documentation will be completed by the endorsement team housed at the WestEd Center for Prevention and Early Intervention (CPEI). Individuals will receive an official document noting their endorsement in the State of California. Their names will be entered into a statewide database of other individuals who have been endorsed.

Professionals may seek endorsement to document that they have received appropriate training and reflective facilitation across all areas related to infant-family and early childhood mental health. An endorsement verifies the professional’s experience with, interest in, and commitment to work with infants, young children, and families. Endorsement will also assist agencies seeking to hire the most qualified individuals. As more services become available for infants, young children, and their families, an endorsement will become increasingly important as families seek effective services, as agencies expand their hiring, and as funders seek the best application of their dollars. Well-trained staff who have a fundamental understanding of key areas of learning and how to apply them are essential to achieving the promise of intervening early across and between a variety of systems and disciplines.