Childhood Mental Health Consultation Research Articles

Improved classroom and child outcomes through mental health consultation in New York City subsidized early care and education programs.

This paper describes the evaluation of one year of infant/early childhood mental health consultation (IECMHC) in subsidized early care and education settings provided by the New York City Early Childhood Mental Health Network. The evaluation examined direct and indirect outcomes of IECMHC including (1) improved classroom practices by ECE teachers, and (2) improved social, emotional, and behavioral outcomes among children in the classroom. The study also reviewed child attributes that might have moderated outcomes. An analysis using paired t-tests of pre-and post-assessment data found significant improvements over time in the classroom environment and management practices, as well as in teachers' perceptions of the degree of difficulty presented by children's classroom behaviors. There were significant improvements in protective factors and problem behaviors among the subset of 138 children who received assessments. Improvements were greater for Black/African American children and for all children with pre-assessment scores in the concern range. Males showed greater improvement in protective factors whereas females showed greater improvement in behavioral concerns. IECMHC is a powerful intervention to improve teachers' classroom management and their perceptions of children's behavior and is important in the context of biases that place marginalized groups at risk of punitive actions by teachers and administrators.

A pilot study of a micro-course to promote positive teaching practices and prevent exclusionary discipline in early childhood

The past two decades of research have underscored the concerning use of exclusionary discipline in early childhood education settings and the need for professional development to support educators to use evidence-based practices. Existing professional development, such as coaching and infant/early childhood mental health consultation, are effective but pose implementation challenges due to time and resource demands. The need for scalable, cost-effective professional development that focuses on social and emotional development and challenging behavior is higher than ever. Short, online, self-paced courses (what we refer to as “micro-courses”) are one approach to addressing these challenges. In this paper, we examine initial evidence for how a micro-course can support in-service early childhood educators to learn and use evidence-based universal strategies to support positive behavior, which may indirectly reduce exclusionary discipline. We leverage quantitative and qualitative data from 25 educators who piloted the course in spring 2022 to report on early childhood educators’ engagement and satisfaction with the micro-course and whether educators report any changes in their knowledge or practices. We found that early childhood educators actively participated in the micro-course, found the experience useful and relevant, and reported changes in their knowledge of and comfort with positive behavior support practices as a result of participation. This study can inform future policy, practice, and research efforts to equitably support children's positive behavior, prevent challenging behavior, and eliminate exclusion in early childhood settings.

Early childhood teacher workplace stress and classroom practices

ABSTRACTTeaching is a stressful profession given teachers’ competing demands. Due to COVID-19, teachers struggle to balance maintaining a safe classroom environment and the traditional child-directed focus of early education. The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of an adaptation of Infant/Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation (IECMHC) on reducing teachers’ stress and examine associations between teacher stress and classroom practices. Measures were collected at baseline (T1) and 6-months post-intervention (T2) using the Childcare Worker Job Stress Inventory, an observational measure of classroom practices (Health Environment Rating Scale), and teacher-child interaction quality (Classroom Assessment Scoring System). Regression analyses revealed that teacher-reported Job Resources were associated with higher Classroom Organization at T2. Findings suggested that providing mental health consultation may be an important first step in improving quality classroom practices, particularly those practices that support children’s social-emotional and behavioral development.