Strengthening Families Feature

ECE Programs Can Help Parents Access Mental Health Supports without Stigma

From the very first day Dr. Matt*—a licensed psychologist—was on-site to consult with parents, people lined up to talk to him, remembers Laura. She directs two early care and education centers in a state with a rapidly growing Strengthening Families initiative. This center had a long-standing relationship with Dr. Matt and was able to get funding from an outside source to have him come and meet with parents one-on-one a few times a month.

Mental health consultants like Dr. Matt can play an important role in building Protective Factors for families through early care and education programs. By building this type of consultation into its normal programming, an early care and education center can help to reduce the stigma for parents around seeking mental health support and connect families to information and resources they might need. “At first parents were a little wary and intimidated,” Laura remembers. “But it wasn’t long before those concerns vanished. He stayed for a half-hour longer than scheduled to accommodate parents, and he provided handouts for those who could not stay and chat. Many parents stated they couldn’t wait for him to come back early next month.”

A mental health consultant can help parents understand and address children’s challenging behaviors, coach them in nurturing their children and taking care of themselves, provide important information about children’s mental health, and connect caregivers to other services, if necessary. While some early care and education centers are able to keep mental health providers on staff, others, like Laura’s, partner with another community agency to offer regular, on-site visits by a mental health professional. To read a monograph about mental health consultation from Strengthening Families’ study of exemplary centers, click here.

“We are so excited to see the Protective Factors at work,” says Laura. “Strengthening Families is truly making a difference in this center. It is our hope to be able to provide this opportunity to all our Strengthening Families centers.”

*Names have been changed.

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