Promoting Mental Health in Early Childhood

1
Promoting Mental Health in Early Childhood

• Amy R. Susman-Stillman, PhD
• Irving B. Harris Training Center for Infant and
  Toddler Development
• Institute of Child Development
• University of Minnesota

2
Shifting Focus of Early Childhood Intervention

• For the last 40 years, has been a focus on
  academic readiness, learning and cognition
• Recent shift to socioemotional development and
  overall child well-being
• National Educational Goals Panel helped to
  broaden the definition
• Susman-Stillman (2002)

3
Young Children at Risk

• Overall proportion of children living in poverty
  has declined over time (22.7 in 1993 to 16 in
  2000)
• However, a significant number of children still
  live in poverty
• Expiration of welfare time limits and current
  economic recession are realities
• Increasing numbers of children live in working
  poor families, those that are just above the
  Federal poverty line, but struggling
• Susman-Stillman (2002)

4
Risks Associated with Poverty

• Parental strain
• Poor quality child care
• Domestic and/or community violence
• Barriers in access to quality health care
• Susman-Stillman (2002)

5
Prevalence of Socioemotional Problems

• A recent study found that 12 of 2-year-olds had
  near-clinical or clinical scores on the Child
  Behavior Checklist
• 32 of those children experienced socioemotional
  delays
• Susman-Stillman (2002)

6
An Early Childhood MentalHealth Perspective

• Based on developmental theory
• Grounded in a family context
• Fosters positive caregiver-child relationships
• Supports the emergence of developmentally
  appropriate social and emotional skills
• Susman-Stillman (2002)

7
Strategies

• Promote young childrens social and emotional
  well-being
• Help families support their childrens social and
  emotional development
• Improve the ability of caregivers outside the
  family to support childrens well-being
• Provide early intervention services and screening
• Susman-Stillman (2002)

8
Early Relationships Are Critical

• Attachment theory and other child development
  research support this statement
• Research shows that children who receive
  responsive caregiving in early years have more
  favorable developmental outcomes
• Best programs work with both caregivers and
  children to affect parent-child interaction
• Promoting positive parent-child relationships
  should be a central goal of any early childhood
  mental health service
• Susman-Stillman (2002)

9
Relationship-Based Interventions

• Build a positive caregiver-intervenor
  relationship to as a model for a positive
  parent-child relationship
• Emphasis is on supporting the parent while he/she
  is learning to work with the child
• Research on home visiting by nurses using a
  relationship-based perspective showed increased
  maternal mental health and parenting skills
• Susman-Stillman (2002)

10
Research Needs

• Few data exist to prove the efficacy of early
  childhood interventions on mental health
• More is known about cognitive outcomes such as
  learning colors and letters than socioemotional
  outcomes such as learning self-control.
• Lack of clear benefits could be due to problems
  with program implementation as well as
  measurements
• Susman-Stillman (2002)