What is Infant Mental Health?
Denise Webb, IMH-E®, Infant Mental Health Specialist and Pediatric Nurse Practitioner: I think that infant mental health is sometimes, that phrase is sometimes perceived as, "Oh my gosh!" You know, "There's a mental illness here, in this tiny infant?" But with infant mental health, what we're thinking about is promoting good emotional development.
Heidi Maderia, IMH-E®, Executive Director, Connecticut Association for Infant Mental Health: Infant mental health concerns that relationship between an infant or a young child and their caregiver, and how that develops into being able to self-regulate and then explore their environment.
Anne Giordano, IMH-E®, Infant Mental Health Specialist, EdAdvance: All children from their earliest days learn how to regulate, learn how to feel safe, learn how to function based upon the very earliest attachment relationships that they've had with their primary caregiver since birth.
Denise Webb: How secure do they feel with their primary caregivers? How safe do they feel to explore? How easily are they consoled? You know, do they feel like somebody's going to answer their needs and be able to help them kind of calm down and self-regulate? And you know, can they have pleasurable moments together with people in their life?
Lisa Candels, Clinical Supervisor, EdAdvance: What we're really looking at is that relationship between the baby and their caregiver. How well is that going and how can we best support it? Because that's what infant mental health is about.
Mary Watson Avery, Director, Connected Beginnings Training Institute: It's so central to every other skill, and it's so central to how children are able to build every other skill that's going to make them ready for school, that's going to make them successful in life, and it's the stuff of being a human.
© 2018. This transcript may be reprinted for educational purposes.