Infant Mental Health
What is Infant Mental Health &
Why is it Important?
Infant Mental Health refers to the social and emotional wellbeing and development of children in the first three years of their life. Foundational to the realm of infant mental health are the indispensable qualities of sensitive, responsive, and trusted relationships. Within these bonds, parents and caregivers play an integral role in guiding infants through the intricate journey of learning to comprehend, manage, and express their emotions, while fostering an environment where they can safely explore the world.
The initial three years of a child’s life mark a period of rapid and profound development, wherein early experiences wield a profound influence not only on the immediate emotional well-being of babies but also on the intricate maturation of their bodies and brains. While it’s crucial to note that a child’s destiny is not predetermined by the age of two, it remains a stark reality that severe and enduring challenges within early relationships and emotional development can cast far-reaching and enduring shadows, impacting a wide spectrum of outcomes that can resonate throughout a child’s lifetime.
Infant Mental Health Trainings
With the support of CYFD, the Center of Innovation offers the following trainings.
Community Providers, State employees and others working with children, youth and families are encouraged to attend.
Click on a training title to register. To view upcoming training dates, see list below.
Visit our Trauma Responsive Care page for similar training opportunities!
Babies Making Meaning: How Development of the Brain is Shaped by Relationships
Trainer: Jane Clarke, PhD
Training Length: 3 hours 15 min
Training Description: Explore how babies make sense of the world around them through relationships to meaning-making and social-emotional development. Learn about the brain and interpersonal biology and what to do when meaning-making goes awry.
Behavior as a Window: Using Neuroscience to Manage Behavioral Challenges in Young Children
Trainer: Jane Clarke, PhD
Training Length: 3 hours 15 min
Training Description: Explore young children’s behavior and their need for adults for co-regulation and how to determine type of behavior before responding. Learn how to target relationships rather than behaviors and how to provide cues for relational safety for young children.
Language of Infants: What They Know and Need
Trainer: Jane Clarke, PhD
Training Length: 3 hours 15 min
Training Description: This 3-hour and 15-minute interactive seminar explores how infants’ develop in relationship with their primary caregivers, and the adverse impact of trauma and maltreatment on their socio-emotional development.
Ripple Effect: An Integrative Framework for Enhancing Trauma Informed Care Registration
Trainer: Chandra Ghosh Ippen, PhD
Training Length: 11 hours
Training Description: This workshop presents an integrative framework for understanding and communicating across systems about how trauma can affect a child, a family, and a system. The Ripple Effect translates complex trauma concepts using metaphor, visual models, common language, and rich case example
Risk Factors Affecting Development: How to Support Resilience During Pregnancy and Early Childhood
Trainer: Jane Clarke, PhD
Training Length: 3 hours 15 min
Training Description: This 3-hour 15-minute interactive seminar will explore risk factors that compromise brain development and impact developmental outcomes. We will then consider how coordinated social behavior is a marker of resilience. Finally, we will look at videos to understand more precisely the impact of risk factors, and review ways to support resilience through coordinated social behavior.
Social Emotional Development and Regulation: Foundations for Learning and Relationships
Trainer: Jane Clarke, PhD
Training Length: 3 hours 15 min
Training Description: This 3-hour 15-minute seminar will explore how the development of social-emotional skills first begins with the fundamental understanding that children need supportive relationships to develop the capacity for self-regulation. Diverse cultures impart to children how to manage and regulate emotions, socialize, and engage with others, but the effects of trauma and adversity can derail that transmission.
Substance Use Disorders and Parenting: Supporting Caregiver-Child Interactions in Recovery
Trainer: Jane Clarke, PhD
Training Length: 3 hours 15 min
Training Description: Explore the impact of substance use disorders on parenting, child development, and the early parent-child relationship. Supporting parental reflective functioning, addressing relational trauma, and improving coordinated social behaviors, have the potential to counter the impact and tip the balance from vulnerability to resilience.
Technology and the Still-Face Paradigm: The Importance of Connection
Trainer: Jane Clarke, PhD
Training Length: 3 hours 15 min
Training Description: Explore the importance of social engagement and connection to a young child’s development and how interruptions to parent-child interactions due to technology are like the Still-Face paradigm and can affect interactions between parents and child.
Trauma, Maltreatment, or ADHD? What Makes it Difficult to Tell in Young Children?
Trainer: Jane Clarke, PhD
Training Length: 3 hour 15 minutes
Training Description: Explore the relationship between maltreatment, trauma, and the symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and how the similarities can make it difficult to differentiate between them. Certain environmental and social conditions can affect the appearance of ADHD symptoms.
Training & Certification
- If you are interested in joining the Child Parent Psychotherapy Clinical Training Program, please contact us
- Other Trauma Responsive Care training oppotunities ⇒ LEARN MORE
Upcoming IMH Public Trainings