Efforts to promote positive mental health and prevent the onset of mental health difficulties are crucial for supporting healthy early childhood social-emotional development and well-being. Although much attention has been dedicated to the urgent mental health needs among young children, there has been limited focus on identifying practices and programs that can prevent mental health difficulties in the first place and promote positive mental health outcomes. This project highlights evidence-based, innovative, and exemplary practices that support positive mental health for children.
Innovative and Exemplary Approaches: An Overview of a Case Study Series
This summary brief presents key themes across five case study organizations and their efforts to support young children's mental health through promotion and prevention. Our analysis focuses on facilitators and barriers to successful implementation and lessons learned across case study sites. The five key themes are:
- Prioritizing relationships and collaboration between providers and families and among providers and agencies.
- Supporting early childhood workforce well-being with self-care and capacity building.
- Ensuring services are available, accessible, and empowering to families and providers.
- Using data to measure success, drive decision making, and inform continuous quality improvement.
- Building sustainable funding to support ongoing and consistent service provision.
Elevating Prevention and Promotion Efforts in Early Childhood Mental Health: A Case Study Series
This series of five case studies describe evidence-based, innovative, and exemplary practices that support positive mental health for children. The case studies in five organizations highlight key elements of prevention and promotion efforts in early childhood mental health, as well as the contextual factors that support implementation.