Building Early Attachment and Mental Health – BEAMH
Building Early Attachment and Mental Health (BEAMH) is a project of Docs for Tots to promote infant and early childhood mental health (IECMH) and expand the availability of early childhood evidence-based and innovative mental health treatment interventions to meet the diverse needs of Long Island’s youngest children (birth-5 years) and their families, ensuring quality care and positive outcomes.
These families and young children are some of the most vulnerable due to family and community trauma, housing insecurity, poverty, and involvement in child welfare, etc.
BEAMH has several goals to lay the foundation of a much-needed system of IECMH on Long Island. Each goal makes a significant impact, and together they work synergistically to build awareness and increase the capacity of IECMH services in Nassau and Suffolk Counties.
Increase Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Awareness, Competencies, and Skills of Cross-Sector Health and Child-Serving Professionals to Improve Identification and Support for Families with Young Children
- Provide island-wide cross-systems educational presentations to health professionals on IECMH, such as Grand Rounds at pediatric teaching hospitals, Community health centers, and outpatient mental health clinics, and at child-serving systems such as Child care, WIC, and Early Intervention.
- Increase awareness and engagement with New York State Association of Infant Mental Health (NYSAIMH) by building competencies leading to Infant and Early Childhood Endorsement, by offering fee assistance and providing direct advisement through the Endorsement process.
Build Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Clinical Capacity
- Convene a BEAMH Strategic Workgroup to identify and address barriers to embedding evidence-based IECMH therapeutic interventions, such as Child-Parent Psychotherapy (CPP), in early childhood mental health therapy at clinical sites in Nassau and Suffolk Counties.
- Increase the number of skilled professionals and sites offering IECMH therapeutic services to young children and their families by launching an 18-month Learning Collaborative to train mental health clinicians and their supervisors in CPP to become rostered clinicians.
- Elevate parent voice in IECMH systems by convening a BEAMH Parent Leadership Council.
When key stakeholders recognize the importance of early childhood mental health outcomes and have the skills and expertise to address infant/toddler mental health, better outcomes for families with young children are achievable.
rochelle@docsfortots.org ~ 631.683.3610
This project is supported by a grant of the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation.
