IECMH Competencies

Emphasizes the crucial importance of continuous self-awareness-recognition of one’s personal identity, implicit biases and professional self, self-regulation, and Reflective Supervision/Consultation (RS/RC). RS/RC is recognized as essential for ethical best practice, managing the emotionally evocative nature of the work, and upholding the concept of the parallel process (an RS/RC-practitioner relationship is characterized by openness, non-judgment, respect and curiosity allowing for emotional safety and learning, and serving as a model for practitioner-family and practitioner-colleague relationships).

Commits to Diversity, Equity,Inclusion, Belonging, and Justice (DEIBJ). The development of competence requires practitioners to examine their own cultural biases and operate with cultural humility based on understanding the historical roots of their own culture, beliefs, and values; develop the capacity to recognize how systemic oppression, racism, and historical factors impact child development and family well-being.

Requires an understanding of transactional and systemic models of development, including essential knowledge of family systems theory. A systems perspective provides a way of understanding the dynamics of interdependent relationships within families and the larger community/society. Practitioners require knowledge of specific community, state, and national systems and/or programs impacting and available to families with infants and young children and how to support families in accessing and navigating through various systems. Competent practice involves working collaboratively across various child-serving systems (e.g., child welfare, healthcare, education) and actively advocating for equitable access to needed resources.

The broadest and most all-encompassing core competency, focuses on growth and development of the infant/child and family in the context of relationships beginning prenatally through the critical early years, emphasizing the interconnectedness of development, attachment, and self-regulation. 4.0 includes knowledge of social-emotional (social interactions, play, expression of affect), physical, cognitive, speech/language and neurological growth and development, as well as the critical importance of recognizing non-dominant models of development and the impacts of contextual factors. It requires expertise in assessing mental health concerns in the context of relationships, considering a range of psychosocial risk factors (e.g., trauma, parental mental illness, extended separations from primary caregiver, and poverty), and recognizing protective factors. The Competencies endorses the use of the multiaxial classification system DC:0–5™ for assessment and the discernment/use of unbiased and age-appropriate assessment strategies and tools. Promotion, prevention, intervention and treatment strategies/approaches to IECMH practice are explored and discussed.

This section has been enhanced. It outlines guidelines for IECMH practice, including informed consent, confidentiality, a relationship-based approach to mandated reporting, managing boundaries, a commitment to professional self-care and continuous learning, as well as the importance of acknowledging transitions and endings with child/family/caregivers and helping them with next steps. At this point, leaders in this multidisciplinary field are grappling with developing a formal IECMH code of ethics. The task of an IECMH practitioner is to blend the code(s) of ethics from their own discipline while maintaining an IECMH lens/perspective and upholding IMH principles. Additionally, the field is informed and guided by The Diversity-Informed Tenets for Work with Infants, Children and Families (Irving Harris Foundation Professional Development Network Tenets Working Group) and ZERO TO THREE’s Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health (IECMH) Guiding Principles.