Embedded Files
Greetings!
We are excited to share the attached report with you, “Supporting Well-Being for the Home Visiting Workforce: Organizational Supports for Experiences of Bias & Discrimination.” This learning brief documents the compounding nature of stress for home visitors of color due to their experiences of racism and discrimination. At the same time, it highlights the importance of having organizational and program leaders who create a supportive, anti-racist work culture for all home visitors.
This learning brief is the third in a series to share findings from a 2023 Oregon survey of over 700 early childhood home visitors and home visiting supervisors and program managers. This study continues to provide a wealth of information about this critical workforce and how to improve and support worker well-being and retention, and more reports will be released soon. To find previous Learning Briefs, please visit the Center for Coordinating Oregon Home Visiting Systems (CCOHVS) website.
If you have questions about this Learning Brief, please contact the Home Visiting Workforce Study team at: Home Visiting Workforce Study (hvworkforce@pdx.edu). Please feel free to share this report with others who may be interested! Best,
The PSU Home Visiting Workforce Study Team - Beth, Nicole, Yumi, Ron and Erin
AntiRacist Leadership & HV Well Being_V3.pdfhvlb3-espanol-rev4 (1).pdf
Infant Toddler Mental Health in Oregon
Infant Toddler Mental Health in Oregon
There is a significant need as well as a growing interest in infant mental health, which refers to the social and emotional development of infants and toddlers in the first three years of life. During those years, young children’s development is guided by their primary caregivers, parents, and others who spend significant amounts of time with them. Brain development in this critical time period affects all areas of growth – physically, cognitively, socially, emotionally, and linguistically. That is why experiences in the first three years of life are critical building blocks for future development.
Young children need healthy attachment to primary caregivers in nurturing environments for healthy development. With young children’s absolute dependence on their caregivers, infant mental health considers the health and well-being of both the child and the primary caregivers as intertwined. Using strengths-based practices, infant mental health supports the building of strong dyadic (one adult/one child) relationships that are the foundation of healthy attachment and relationships. Attention to infant mental health helps the family unit and primary caregivers support young children’s relationships by addressing social and emotional stressors that impact the development and the wiring of the brain in young children, from birth to three years of age.
Infant mental health is designed to strengthen protective factors in a community, including:
Infant mental health is designed to strengthen protective factors in a community, including:
Enhancing parental resilience to meet challenges and demands.
Enhancing parental resilience to meet challenges and demands.
Providing an array of social connections to mitigate isolation.
Providing an array of social connections to mitigate isolation.
Giving parents coordinated and specific supports in times of need.
Giving parents coordinated and specific supports in times of need.
Facilitating knowledge of parenting and child development.
Facilitating knowledge of parenting and child development.
Supporting healthy social and emotional development in young children.
Supporting healthy social and emotional development in young children.
Infant mental health supports emerge from interdisciplinary practices that involve families, social services, health, law enforcement and education to support families and caregivers of children neonatal to three years old. Supporting infant mental health offers unique opportunities to build on coordinated care systems for families and their young children in the community across public and private agencies.
Douglas County-Infant Mental Health Project (DC-IMH)
Douglas County-Infant Mental Health Project (DC-IMH)
The Douglas County-Infant Mental Health Project was a place-based professional cohort model. It focused on providing opportunities to support coordinated services between agencies while addressing issues of shared language and coordinated delivery of services for families and caregivers of children neonatal to 3 years of age. All these activities were based on a shared understanding of research-based infant mental health. The project’s goal was to create a safety net to support vulnerable families who had difficulty finding and/or accessing resources through coordinated services.
A multi-pronged approach was taken to support the Douglas County community in developing its own structures and norms within a foundation of shared values. The approach focused on building an interdisciplinary cohort of individuals and agencies to serve children birth to three and their families that were engaged in strategic activities, including a shared:
Educational research foundation in prenatal to three years – Portland State University’s Infant/Toddler Mental Health graduate certificate.
Demonstration of competencies – Infant Mental Health Endorsement® requiring a portfolio and exam.
Ongoing reflection on practice – reflective supervision.
Ongoing construction of interdisciplinary approaches – networking and on-going professional development.
Input in designing a replicable model for other rural counties.
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