Join us for Infant/Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation: Voices from the Field. This webinar will offer participants an opportunity to learn from 5 professionals who provide infant/early childhood mental health consultation (IECMHC) in North Carolina. Panelists offer decades of experience and knowledge from various organizations, backgrounds and communities and will provide examples of how they each provide services along the promotion, prevention and intervention continuum.
Following this webinar, attendees will:
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Understand Infant/Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation (IECMHC) as a unique field of practice
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Be introduced to the National Center of Excellence for Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation Competencies
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Learn about some of the challenges and successes that our panelists face in their unique roles providing IECMHC across North Carolina
IECMHC is a growing field of practice and can be offered in any setting but is most common in early care and education. Many states have statewide programs and the Center of Excellence for IECMHC (CoE) hosted by Georgetown University is the national resource guiding the field of practice. The CoE provides technical assistance to increase access to high quality mental health consultation throughout the country. Equity is central to IECMHC and the CoE helps consultation systems leaders and all IECMHC practitioners build capacity in understanding race and systemic racism, bias, and culturally responsive practice and meaningfully embed equity in their programs and practice.
What is IECMHC?
IECMHC is a prevention-based approach that pairs a mental health consultant with adults who work with infants and young children in the different settings where they learn and grow, such as child care, preschool, home visiting, early intervention and their homes. Mental health consultation is not about “fixing kids” - nor is it therapy. IECMHC strengthens adults’ capacity to facilitate young children’s healthy social and emotional development using a consultative stance.
Many states have statewide programs and the Center of Excellence for IECMHC (CoE) hosted by Georgetown University is the national resource guiding the field of practice. The CoE provides technical assistance to increase access to high quality mental health consultation throughout the country. Equity is central to IECMHC and the CoE helps consultation systems leaders and all IECMHC practitioners build capacity in understanding race and systemic racism, bias, and culturally responsive practice and meaningfully embed equity in their programs and practice.
What do IECMH Consultants do?
IECMH consultants develop relationships with the adults in young children’s lives to build adults’ capacity and skills to strengthen and support the healthy social and emotional development of children―early and often before formalized intervention is needed.
IECMH Consultants:
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Work to support strong relationships and supportive environments for children.
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Focus on building the capacity of the adults in children’s lives to understand young children’s social emotional development
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Are highly-trained professionals and are often licensed mental health clinicians
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Have specialized knowledge in early childhood development, the effects of stress and trauma on families, the importance of attachment for young children, and the impacts of adult mental health on children
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Use a strengths-based approach and consider all levels of influence to support young children and their caregivers
What Are the Outcomes of IECMHC?
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IECMHC has been shown to improve children’s social skills and emotional functioning, promote healthy relationships, reduce challenging behaviors, reduce the number of suspensions and expulsions, improve classroom quality, and reduce provider stress, burnout, and turnover.
WebinarDetails:
NCIMHA members are FREE
Non-members are $15
*Membership scholarships available via www.NCIMHA.org/membership
Certificate of Attendance provided. Training meets the requirements for the Culturally Responsive, Relationship Focused Early Childhood Mental Health Endorsement®
Our Panelists:
Tykara Young,MSW, LCSWA, ECMH-E®, Early Childhood Mental Health Consultant
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Tykara Young’s journey to the early childhood field started as a teacher. She taught for eight years in various preschool classrooms in Buncombe County. As a result, she has always been invested in the success of children and families. Next, she took an early intervention position where she worked with families to find resources needed to reduce family stress and support children in the classroom. Soon after, Tykara was trained in the Circle of Security Parenting Program. She then offered groups to families in her classroom and school. She later collaborated with Resources for Resilience to provide groups for families involved in the child welfare system.
Tykara earned her master’s degree in social work from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2022. She is passionate about mental health services for families of color and working in rural communities. Currently, Tykara works as the Early Childhood Mental Health Consultant at Families and Communities Rising’s KidSCope Program serving Orange and Chatham County. Her goal there is to offer families and teachers strategies to reduce challenging behaviors for their children and also increase the child’s positive social and emotional skills.
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Lauren Thomason, MA, LCMHC, ITTI Care Project Coach
Lauren grew up in Charlotte, but has lived in the Raleigh/Durham area since 2002. She has a Master’s Degree in Counseling and a Bachelor’s in Psychology and Spanish. Lauren works as a coach with the ITTI Care Project at the Center for Child and Family Policy at Duke. She is a Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor and is a vetted Reflective Supervision supervisor for I/ECMH Endorsement. She enjoys singing, exploring state parks, and spending time with her new niece!
Zulaykha Clemons-Dunn, MS, EChO Program Manager, Exchange Family Center
Zulaykha (Zoo-lay-ka) Clemons-Dunn has a Master’s of Science degree in Early Childhood Education from Capella University. She has over 15 years’ experience working with children birth to prekindergarten in early care settings in Durham and Orange Counties. She is the Early Childhood Outreach Program Manager, at the Exchange Family Center in Durham, NC. As an EChO Consultant she has provided coaching and mental health consultation to support early education classrooms, as well as individual children, specifically around social and emotional skill development. She provides support to children and their families based on the needs of individual children and works with childcare providers and families to create successful strategies in the classroom using evidence-based, trauma-informed, and culturally-sensitive strategies from the CSEFEL Teaching Pyramid, Conscious Discipline and the Devereux Early Childhood Assessment Program. Zulaykha (Zoo-lay-ka) provides trainings on how to use these social and emotional learning tools in classrooms and homes to support and build positive, nurturing and responsive relationships between children and their caregivers. Her trainings emphasis the importance of building protective factors and the resiliency of children and caregivers to eliminate barriers to whole-hearted living.
Tipfanie Suitte, MSW, LCSW, EChO Mental Health Consultant
Tipfanie Suitte is an Early Childhood Outreach Mental Health Consultant (EChO) with Exchange Family Center in Durham. Tipfanie provides Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health consultation to early childhood providers and families to promote the social emotional development, reduce child care suspension and expulsion of young children in their childcare center and family child care homes through coaching, training and consultation. Tipfanie believes that young children have the capacity to thrive socially, emotionally and learn new skills when the adults in their lives are well physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. Meeting the adults in this capacity is essential in building a positive and healthy relationship. Tipfanie has a certificate in Infant & Early Childhood Mental Health, is trained and models the following trauma informed, culturally sensitive practices; the Pyramid Model, Devereux Early Childhood (DECA) Infant, Toddler and Preschool Assessment Programs, Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning (CSEFEL) and Conscious Discipline.
Katie Clay-Wakefield, MA, LCMHC, Mental Health Consultant for Head Start of Buncombe and Madison Counties
Katie Clay-Wakefield Counseling & Consulting, PLLC
Katie has been the Mental Health Consultant for Head Start of Buncombe and Madison Counties for the past seven years most recently as a private contractor and previously as an employee of a local community mental health agency. Before coming into consultation, she worked as a Qualified Mental Health Professional on an Intensive In Home Team for six years and before that as a toddler and preschool teacher.
Ms. Clay-Wakefield began her career with young children and their caregivers over 20 years ago as a teacher in childcare centers. In graduate school at Antioch University New England where she earned her MA in Dance/Movement Therapy and Mental Health Counseling, Katie interned with an agency in Vermont that provided and was able to bill Medicaid for MHC; this is where she truly began seeing the importance of supporting children’s caretakers. While working in community mental health, Katie chaired a committee for employee wellness with the intent of caring for frontline staff so that they may care for their consumers. She is trained in the Positive Parenting Program levels 3 and 4 and Circle of Security Parenting with the intention of bringing it to the Head Start teachers that she works with.
