Project Goals

The initiative calls for development of a community-based training program for practitioners serving the birth to five year old population.

The program will provide basic IFECMH training for 320 practitioners from six to seven large public agencies and several smaller non-profit organizations in the CVRC six-county catchment area (Fresno, Kings, Madera, Mariposa, Merced, and Tulare counties). These trainings will be directly responsive to the professional development needs of participating agencies, and will also serve to move attendees closer to meeting state-level endorsement in IFECMH, if desired.

An Interagency IFECMH Training Council representing the six counties and the various participant agencies will be established to design and support the trainings. Curriculum for the trainings will be based on the IFECMH Training Guidelines and Personnel Competencies developed by the California Infant-Family and Early Childhood Mental Health Workgroup in 2009.

During the first year of the project, the CCCI will reconvene the San Joaquin Valley IFECMH Steering Committee on a quarterly basis. In addition, a subgroup of the Steering Committee, known as the Interagency IFECMH Training Council, will be formed and staffed by CCCI. This smaller body of 10 – 15 individuals will be comprised of top administrators from the six counties whose agencies are the focus of the proposed training project: Central Valley Regional Center, Fresno County Department of Social Services, Kings and Merced County Offices of Education, Tulare and Fresno County Children’s Services Networks, and multiple County Department of Behavioral Health, local public health departments, etc.

CCCI will work with the IFECMH Training Council to achieve the following outcomes:

conduct a multi-county, multi-agency training survey to determine priority training needs in IFECMH among participating agencies. Click here to download survey.
provide training to 320 providers in the core principles of infant-family and early childhood mental health to include recruiting training participants, and developing the syllabus, schedule and format of training sessions in collaboration with the IFECMH Training Council

3) Provide assistance to up to 50 individuals in developing portfolios for endorsement in infant-family and early childhood mental health over a two-year period.

Provide continuing education credits in nursing, counseling and social work for applicable trainings
conduct an evaluation survey of each training session
synthesize and document systems change information that emerges from each of the trainings.

At each of the proposed training sessions (approximately eight per year), small reflective practice learning pods will be created involving up to eight participants each. These pods will meet for two hours between monthly sessions. The pods will be configured to represent varied disciplines and agencies. The learning pods will be facilitated by members of the First 5 Fresno County Reflective Practice Mentor Group. Upon completion of each training session provided as part of this project, participants will receive a certificate that details the training domain and competency that was met by the training. An endorsement database will be housed at the CCCI will to track the participation of up to 50 individuals seeking endorsement. Database information will be provided to trainees upon request, and will be helpful in preparing their portfolios for submission to WestEd’s Center for Prevention and Early Intervention (CPEI). In this way, the project not only provides professional development for early intervention, mental health, early care and education and other providers in mastering the foundations of infant mental health; for those so desiring, assistance in becoming endorsed will also be provided.

For more information about the project, please contact Dr. Cassandra Joubert at cjoubert@csufresno.edu.