Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation

This chapter is devoted to mental health consultation in early childhood settings. This is a problem-solving and capacity-building intervention implemented through a collaborative relationship between a professional consultant with mental health expertise and one or more individuals directly involved with the child (e.g., staff members at a child care center, other service providers or family members). Finding ways to support the child, the caregiver and the relationship between the child and the caregiver is one of the main challenges in the early mental health consultative model. The chapter provides detailed guidelines for the consultative process, with particular emphasis on the qualities required of the consultant, the type of relationship which he or she must attempt to develop with the caretakers in a given setting and suggested procedures for building collaboration with these individuals. In order to enhance mental health consultation in early childhood additional resources need to be allocated and areas of responsibility and goals need to be clarified.