Early Childhood Mental Health 

Consultation

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration

Center for Mental Health Services

www.samhsa.gov

Promotion of Mental Health and 

Prevention of Mental and 

Behavioral Disorders

2005 Series

Volume 1
Early Childhood Mental Health 

Consultation

Elena Cohen

Roxane Kaufmann

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration

Center for Mental Health Services

www.samhsa.gov

Promotion of Mental Health and 

Prevention of Mental and 

Behavioral Disorders

2005 Series

Volume 1
Acknowledgments

Numerous people contributed to the development of this volume (see Appendix D, “List of 

Contributors”). This volume was prepared by the Georgetown University Center for Child and Human 

Development for the Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS), Substance Abuse and Mental Health 

Services Administration (SAMHSA), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). Gail Ritchie 

served as the Government Project Officer.

Disclaimer

The views, opinions, and content of this publication are those of the authors and contributors and do 

not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or policies of CMHS, SAMHSA, or DHHS.

Public Domain Notice

All material appearing in this volume is in the public domain and may be reproduced or copied 

without permission from SAMHSA. Citation of the source is appreciated. However, this publication may 

not be reproduced or distributed for a fee without the specific, written authorization of the Office of 

Communications, SAMHSA, DHHS.

Electronic Access and Copies of Publication

This publication can be accessed electronically through the following Internet World Wide Web 

connection: www.samhsa.gov. For additional free copies of this document, please call SAMHSA’s 

National Mental Health Information Center at 1-800-789-2647.

Recommended Citation

Cohen, E., and Kaufmann, R. Early Childhood Mental Heatlh Consultation. DHHS Pub. No. 

CMHS-SVP0151. Rockville, MD: Center for Mental Health Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health 

Services Administration, 2005.

Originating Office

Center for Mental Health Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 

1 Choke Cherry Road, Rockville, MD 20857

DHHS Publication No. CMHS-SVP0151

Printed 2005
iii

Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation

Foreword

We envision a future when everyone with a mental illness will recover, 

a future when mental illness can be prevented or cured, a future when 

mental illnesses are detected early, and a future when everyone with a 

mental illness at any stage of life has access to effective treatment and 

supports—essentials for living, working, learning, and participating fully 

in the community.

“Vision Statement,” President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental 

Health, Achieving the Promise: Transforming Mental Health Care in 

America. Final Report.

We are living in exciting times for the promotion of mental health and the prevention 

of mental disorders. Prevention science has made enormous strides in advancing the 

health of those at risk for a number of illnesses, such as cancer and heart disease. The 

research community is beginning to yield promising results for the mental health field.

In 2005, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA’s) 

Center for Mental Health Services is launching a series on the Promotion of Mental 

Health and Prevention of Mental and Behavioral Disorders. This series will have 

six monographs, and each topic conveys the work of national experts in the fields 

of prevention science and child development. The first two monographs are Early 

Childhood Mental Health Consultation (Volume 1) and A Training Guide for the Early 

Childhood Services Community (Volume 2). This set addresses young children’s 

mental health.

SAMHSA recognizes the critical role of child care providers in facilitating a young 

child’s social, emotional, and cognitive development in collaboration with the child’s 

parent and significant caretakers. Increasingly, child care providers report difficulty 

working with children who are experiencing multiple challenges. Mental health 

consultants, trained to work with young children and their families, can serve as 

important resources to help the child care provider find effective ways to work with 

these children. Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation provides a blueprint for 

child care providers to use when hiring a mental health consultant. The companion 

piece to this monograph, A Training Guide for the Early Childhood Services 

Community, offers a guide for trainers to use when teaching the early childhood 

community how to use the blueprint.

We are very grateful to child care providers for their invaluable work in giving our 

children a solid foundation for future growth. Please help us create a health care 

system in which all individuals, including our youngest and most vulnerable, can 

access quality services to promote mental health and can live quality lives in their 

community.

Charles G. Curie, M.A., A.C.S.W. A. Kathryn Power, M.Ed.

Administrator Director

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Center for Mental Health

 Services Administration Services
v

Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation

Contents

INTRODUCTION .............................................................................. vii

Background .............................................................................................viii

Organization of This Monograph................................................................ x

SECTION I – MENTAL HEALTH PERSPECTIVE ...................................................1

Values Inherent in the Mental Health Perspective........................................2

SECTION II – DEFINITION AND DESCRIPTION OF TYPES OF 

MENTAL HEALTH CONSULTATION .............................................................3

Definition and Types of Mental Health Consultation....................................4

Types of Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation .................................6

SECTION III – ESSENTIAL FEATURES OF EARLY CHILDHOOD 

MENTAL HEALTH CONSULTATION ...........................................................11

Collaborative Relationships ......................................................................11

Problem-Solving and Capacity-Building Goals ..........................................12

Issue Specificity and Time Limitation.........................................................14

Skills of Consultants .................................................................................18

SECTION IV – CHALLENGES AND STRATEGIES IN THE

CONSULTING PROCESS ...........................................................................21

Difficulties in Implementing the Intervention Plan .....................................21

Organizational Setting .............................................................................22

Value Conflicts.........................................................................................23

Racial, Ethnic, Cultural, and Socio-Economic Issues ..................................23

Lack of Mental Health Professionals With Early Childhood

Consultation Experience .......................................................................24

Funding...................................................................................................24

SECTION V – CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

FOR ACTION ...........................................................................................27

Administrators of Community-Based Programs .........................................27

Policy Makers and Funders .......................................................................28

Educational Institutions ............................................................................28

Consultants .............................................................................................29
SECTION VI – SELECTED RESOURCES ..........................................................31

APPENDIXES

A. Selected Programs ..................................................................................33

Daycare Consultants, Infant-Parent Program............................................33

Developmental Training and Support Program, Ounce of

Prevention Fund ...................................................................................35

Day Care Plus, a Positive Education Program ...........................................37

Kidscope.................................................................................................39

B. Assessment in Child- and Family-Centered Consultation..........................41

C. Assessment in Program Consultation .......................................................43

D. List of Contributors..................................................................................45

REFERENCES ................................................................................................47

vi TABLE OF CONTENTS
Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation

vii

Introduction

The vital public health issue of promoting healthy development and the future well-being of infants, toddlers, and preschool children has important 

implications for families, businesses, private philanthropy, and government. 

Investment in fostering mental health in the early childhood years presents 

a special opportunity to open a door to a child’s future; to lessen and, when 

possible, avoid future developmental and emotional problems; and to prepare a 

child for school and life.

This monograph had its genesis at the May 1998 “Roundtable on Mental Health 

Consultation Approaches for Programs/Systems Working with Infants, Toddlers, 

and Preschoolers, and Their Families.” Its goal was to exchange information. 

The then Georgetown University Child Development Center convened this 

meeting at the request of and with funding by the Substance Abuse and Mental 

Health Services (SAMHSA), Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS). The 

center collaborated with the CMHS Prevention Initiatives Priority and Program 

Development Branch to conduct the meeting.

Since then, the fields of prevention science and child development have made 

enormous strides, yet child care providers who could benefit from these advances 

are often unaware of them. Mental health clinicians, trained to work with infants, 

toddlers, preschool children, and their families, are in a unique position to help 

their colleagues in the early childhood community use the latest research in their 

work with children, especially those with challenging behaviors. 

Therefore, SAMHSA’s CMHS is launching a series on the Promotion of Mental 

Health and Prevention of Behavioral and Mental Disorders. This series will have 

six monographs, and each topic conveys the work of national experts in the fields 

of prevention science and child development. The series comprises the following 

monographs:

• Volume 1 (published in July 2005): Early Childhood Mental Health

Consultation

• Volume 2 (published in July 2005): A Training Guide for the Early

Childhood Services Community

• Volume 3 (to be published in 2006): The Study of Implementation in

 School-Based Preventive Interventions: Theory, Research, and

 Practice

• Volume 4 (to be published in 2006): Reducing Risks for Mental Disorders

During the First Five Years of Life: A Review of the Literature

• Volume 5 (to be published in 2006): The Prevention of Mental Disorders

 in School-Aged Children: A Review of the Literature

• Volume 6 (to be published in 2006): Becoming a Preventionist: Making

 Prevention Part of Your Mental Health Practice
viii FOREWORD INTRODUCTION

This monograph, Volume 1, Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation,

addresses young children’s mental health by providing a blueprint for child care 

providers to use when hiring a mental health consultant. This first monograph 

serves the following purposes:

• broadens the discussion on mental health consultation and presents 

approaches for early childhood programs;

• facilitates the integration of mental health consultation into Early Head 

Start and Head Start programs; center-based child care and family child 

care homes; early intervention, child welfare, family support, and other 

programs; and other systems of care that serve young children and their 

families; and

• shares current thinking of program administrators and practitioners from 

both the public and private sectors on promoting healthy development 

among the youngest members of our society in early childhood settings 

through mental health consultation.

The target audience includes early childhood program administrators, supervisors, 

directors of child care programs, foundations, training organizations, educational 

institutions, parents, families, and mental health professionals and consultants.

The second monograph, Volume 2, A Training Guide for the Early Childhood 

Services Community, is a companion piece to this monograph. It offers a guide 

for trainers to use when teaching the early childhood community how to use the 

blueprint.

BACKGROUND

Brain research conducted over the past decade demonstrates that the way 

individuals function in their preschool years through adolescence hinges—to a 

significant extent—on their experiences before age 3 (Carnegie Corporation of 

New York, 1994). These findings are bolstered by evidence of the long-term effects 

of comprehensive early childhood programs. These effects include improved 

educational outcomes, reduced levels of criminal activity, and increased economic 

self-sufficiency—initially for the parent and later for the child—through greater 

labor force participation, higher income, and lower welfare use (Gomby, Behrman, 

Larner, Lewit, & Stevenson, 1995).

Ideally, a child spends the years between birth and age 6 in close relationships 

with adult caregivers who offer nurturing love, protection, guidance, stimulation, 

and support. However, patterns of contact between American children and their 

adult caregivers have changed significantly during the last couple of decades. 

More and more infants, toddlers, and preschoolers spend 8 to 10 hours each day 

in some type of early childhood setting. Seventy-five percent of mothers with 

children under age 6 and 59 percent of mothers with children under age 3 are in 

the work force. As a result, about 12 million children under age 6 require some 

type of child care. 
Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation

ix

Child care, early childhood education, and early intervention programs for children 

with special needs are provided in a wide variety of settings. These settings 

include centers operated on both a for-profit and a not-for-profit basis, such as 

family child care homes, public and private nursery schools, prekindergartens, and 

home-visiting programs. The quality of these arrangements varies dramatically. 

Some factors related to quality of care are regulated by government (for example, 

child and staff ratio, group size, physical facility features, and minimum caregiver 

training). But other critical components are more subjective, and their quality 

cannot be easily regulated. Examples of these components include the nature 

and frequency of caregiver-child interactions, teaching and learning styles, and 

sensitivity of programs to the cultures, languages, and preferences of the children 

and families they serve. 

Early childhood providers report that they see increasing numbers of children with 

special needs (who may or may not meet eligibility criteria under the Individuals 

with Disabilities Education Act [IDEA], Part B or Part C). Violence, abuse, prenatal 

substance exposure, losses due to incarceration or death, or residing with multiple 

caregivers or in foster homes often has significantly affected the lives of children 

who display severe behavioral and emotional problems (Sameroff & Fiese, 2000). 

The literature suggests that children who struggle with behavioral and emotional 

problems at this young age have a 50 percent chance of continuing to struggle 

into adolescence and adulthood. 

The range of challenging behaviors that children demonstrate seems to increase 

with the complexity of the difficulties that families and communities confront (such 

as crime, substance abuse, depression, and domestic violence). However, the skills 

and the resources that families and caregivers need to cope with and manage 

their children’s behaviors often have not met that rising challenge. Caregivers 

often experience stress and burnout as they deal with many of the same issues 

(such as poverty, crime, and low wages) as the families of the children they serve 

((Bowdish, 1998). Salaries for early childhood caregivers are notoriously low, and 

caregivers typically work under stressful circumstances. These factors often lead 

to high staff turnover and low morale, conditions that can seriously compromise 

providing stable, high-quality, and family-centered early childhood services to 

children and their families. 

Most important, the negative developmental paths predicted for these children 

and their families are not improving. Child care programs are expelling increasing 

numbers of “problem children” in a cycle of disruptive transitions that interfere 

with the children’s critical need for stability. The State of Michigan Department 

of Community Health conducted a series of surveys to assess the prevalence 

of preschool-age children expelled from child care settings and to determine 

strategies for retaining them. One survey reported that during 1 year, nearly 

2 percent of the children in a single Michigan county had been expelled. It is 

not surprising that parents whose children have been expelled from child care 

frequently withhold pertinent information from subsequent potential providers. 

They do so because they fear rejection, given their desperate need for reliable 

child care arrangements. But withholding information offers little or no chance for 

staff of these programs to care successfully for the children (Tableman, 1998; for 

more information, contact Betty Tableman, University Outreach and Engagement, 

Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, 48824).
x FOREWORD INTRODUCTION

Despite this bleak picture, positive research findings indicate that prevention and 

intervention efforts to address mental health problems in early childhood may 

reduce significant personal and social difficulties in later childhood, adolescence, 

and adulthood. The earlier the intervention begins, the better the prognosis. Early 

childhood providers have indicated that the most helpful types of assistance to 

support them in caring for children with challenging behaviors are:

 on-site consultation with a mental health expert,

 workshops on behavior management strategies, and

 written materials on behavior management strategies (Tableman, 1998).

Directors and administrators of early childhood programs are being challenged 

to consider and offer creative ways to build their staff’s capacity to address 

the mental health concerns of children and families living with many risks and 

stressors. They understand that there are no “quick fixes” and that their objective 

requires attention, time, and resources. However, providing staff support and 

mental health skill development pays off in “better problem solving skills, greater 

staff confidence in coping with difficult situations, a wider range of concrete 

strategies to help children and families, and the provision of a safety valve which 

enables staff to share their frustrations and to celebrate the victories of their work”

(Yoshikawa & Knitzer, 1997).

The Head Start program proactively emphasizes the mental health approach to 

working with staff, children, and families (Green, Simpson, Everhart, Vale, & 

Gettman, 2004). Head Start’s recently published performance standards stress 

collaborative relationships between programs and parents to share concerns about 

children’s mental health, to identify appropriate responses to children’s behavior, 

and to help parents understand mental health issues and create supportive 

environments and relationships in their homes. The performance standards also 

require that local Head Start programs have mental health professionals on staff 

and that on-site mental health consultation be available to staff at work.

ORGANIZATION OF THIS MONOGRAPH

This monograph is presented in six sections and five appendixes:

I. Mental Health Perspective. Describes the early childhood mental health 

perspective and why it is essential to respond effectively to the social, 

emotional, cognitive, and behavioral needs of young children and their 

families

II. Definition and Types of Mental Health Consultation. Defines early 

childhood mental health consultation and contrasts it with other problemsolving, capacity-building techniques and with direct mental health services 

that enhance the well-being of young children, their families, and other 

caregivers in child care settings. Using an example, this section describes 

two major types of mental health consultation: child- and family-centered 

consultation and programmatic consultation

III. Essential Features of Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation. 

Describes the main features of effective early childhood mental health 
Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation

xi

consultation, including the following: (1) collaborative relationships, 

(2) problem-solving and capacity-building goals, (3) issue specificity and time 

limitation, and (4) skills of consultants

IV. Challenges and Strategies in the Consulting Process. Discusses critical 

challenges facing early childhood mental health consultation, as well as 

strategies to surmount some barriers

V. Conclusions and Recommendations for Action. Presents 

recommendations to program directors, policy makers, educational 

institutions, and consultants for integrating mental health consultation into 

early childhood programs

VI. Selected Resources. Presents resources that support programs in 

implementing early childhood mental health strategies

Appendixes

A. Selected Programs. Summarizes several early childhood programs that have 

incorporated mental health consultation as part of the continuum of support 

provided to staff and families

B. Assessment in Child- and Family-Centered Consultation. Presents lists of 

questions for consultants and staff to consider for case-based consultation

C. Assessment in Program Consultation. Presents lists of questions for 

consultants and staff to consider for program-based consultation

D. List of Contributors. Presents a list of professionals whose support and 

participation were invaluable and essential to the preparation of this 

monograph
Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation

1

SECTION I 

Mental Health Perspective

Recent neurobiological research has produced a solid basis for introducing an early childhood mental health perspective into programs and systems 

that serve young children and their families. Neurobiologists have dramatically 

increased our understanding of how the brain develops during the first 3 years of 

life by describing the impact of environmental and biological factors on a child’s 

cognitive, physical, behavioral, and social development. Concurrently, research on 

child development and clinical practice has shown that nurturing relationships play 

a crucial role in facilitating young children’s social and emotional development. 

These bodies of knowledge provide a solid basis for introducing the mental health 

perspective into early childhood programs and systems.

The ultimate goals of this early childhood mental health perspective are to 

enhance the well-being of all children in child care settings and to minimize or 

avoid behavioral problems in children with special needs (Donohue, Falk, & 

Provet, 2000). Designing and implementing child care and other programs that 

emphasize the mental health of the participating children reflect the essence of the 

mental health perspective. 

The mental health perspective holds that the behavior of young children must be 

understood within the context of:

 an age-appropriate developmental sequence (is the child meeting expected 

developmental milestones?),

 relationships between children and caregivers in their immediate 

environment (within the family or in a child care setting), and

 factors in the broader environment that impact child-family relationships 

(such as extended family, work, and neighborhood).

The adoption of a mental health perspective offers an opportunity for mental 

health professionals to play a new role in early childhood and family support 

settings.

Traditionally, when mental health professionals have been involved in early 

childhood and family support programs, they have directed their efforts toward 

children who have exhibited the greatest difficulties—the child who hurts herself 

or others, or the child with difficult-to-manage behaviors. These professionals 

have generally referred a “problem child” to psychotherapy and the family to 

counseling. If mental health consultation has been available, it often has been 

limited to interventions at the time of a crisis.

By contrast, programs that integrate a mental health perspective have a strong 

focus on prevention.
2 FOREWORD INTRODUCTION

These programs:

 try to anticipate and promote the well-being of the child, rather than 

respond exclusively to identified problems;

 reach out to children at risk of developing social, emotional, and behavioral 

difficulties;

 acknowledge that some young children have identifiable disturbances and 

are seriously troubled; and

 view parents and other adult caregivers as an integral part of promoting the 

mental health of all children, but especially those with identified behavioral 

problems.

VALUES INHERENT IN THE MENTAL HEALTH PERSPECTIVE

The mental health perspective in early childhood programs is based on a set of 

values that underpin its models and approaches in policy, practice, and attitude 

(Feinberg & Fenichel, 1996; Stroul & Friedman, 1986; Zero to Three, 1992). These 

values include the following:

1. All young children deserve to spend their days in a safe, stable, caring, 

and nurturing environment. In early child care settings, the caregiving 

environment plays a crucial role in promoting healthy social and emotional 

growth and resiliency, in protecting young children from psychological 

harm, and in creating conditions conducive to appropriate social and 

emotional well-being.

2. To meet the mental health needs of very young children, it is necessary 

not only to consider the young child and her parents and caregivers as 

individuals, but also critical to consider the quality of the child’s many 

relationships. Examples are the relationship between the child and her 

parents, the relationship between the child and other important people in 

her life, and the relationships among adults within and beyond the family.

3. Families are considered to be full participants in all aspects of the design, 

implementation, and evaluation of programs and services for their young 

children.

4. Early childhood mental health services are responsive to the cultural, racial, 

and ethnic differences of the populations they serve.

5. Practices build on, promote, and enhance individual, family, and child care 

staff strengths, rather than focus solely on weaknesses or problems.
Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation

3

SECTION II 

Definition and Description of Types of

Mental Health Consultation

This section defines and describes two different types of mental health consultation for young children in child care settings and their families. The 

two approaches are child- and family-centered and program-centered consultation. 

A fictional—but typical—example, presented in boxes throughout this section, 

illustrates how mental health consultation can work in center-based settings.

Mary, the toddler classroom teacher at the Flower Street Child Care Center, has 

been increasingly concerned about Robert G, a 2-year-old boy who has been 

in the agency’s early childhood education program since he was 2 months old. 

Robert has always seemed shy and withdrawn, but during the past 3 months—

ever since he moved up from the younger group to a new class—he has been 

having difficulties during nap time. His crying not only reveals his own distress, 

but also prevents other children from falling asleep. Robert stops crying when 

the teacher’s aide sits by his side, but he begins to scream again the moment 

she leaves. Mary also has noticed that he has not been eating very much. 

Empathizing with Mary’s concern and frustration, the center supervisor decided 

to request a mental health consultation on Robert’s behavior.

As Mary made plans to ask Robert’s parents to consent to the consultation, she 

realized that no center staff had ever discussed any concerns about Robert with 

his parents (although it was apparent now that center staff had had several 

concerns about his behavior). The parents had completed a social services 

needs assessment some time ago, but neither had ever attended any parent 

involvement activities.

Robert’s father (and sometimes an aunt) brings him to the center in the 

mornings on the way to work, and his mother picks him up in the afternoons. 

Although both parents are courteous, Robert’s parents and staff have little 

interaction.

When Mary approached Mr. G to request a meeting with both parents to 

discuss her concerns about Robert, Mr. G was taken very much by surprise. 

He responded that because of work responsibilities, he and his wife could not 

attend a meeting together. He indicated clearly that although he did not really 

understand what a “mental health consultation” meant, he saw no need for 

a consultant to observe his child. He seemed angry at Robert when he left the 

classroom.

The following morning, he deposited Robert’s things in his cubby and hurriedly 

left the center. 
4 FOREWORD SECTION II  Definition and Description of Types of Mental Health Consultation

Mary discussed the incident with her supervisor. She expressed her angry 

feelings toward Mr. G and her anxiety about the next steps to take. Mary and 

her supervisor decided to ask the mental health consultant for assistance in 

introducing the need for a consultation to Robert’s parents.

DEFINITION AND TYPES OF MENTAL HEALTH CONSULTATION

Mental health consultation in early childhood settings is a problem-solving and 

capacity-building intervention implemented within a collaborative relationship 

between a professional consultant with mental health expertise and one or more 

individuals, primarily child care center staff, with other areas of expertise. Early 

childhood mental health consultation aims to build the capacity (improve the 

ability) of staff, families, programs, and systems to prevent, identify, treat, and 

reduce the impact of mental health problems among children from birth to age 6 

and their families.

The goal of early childhood mental health consultation is neither to “rescue” 

child care staff (by shifting their responsibility for dealing with difficult situations 

to a consultant) nor to transform them into mental health professionals. Rather, 

the goals are to assist staff in understanding the mental health perspective, 

and incorporating it into their work, and to use their own roles, skills, and 

experience to:

 foster positive learning and development of each child through careful 

observation;

 implement strategies that enhance learning experiences;

 promote social, emotional, and behavioral development of each child;

 build relationships and communicate with parents; and

 seek further consultation, when necessary.

Mental health consultation is one of a number of problem-solving and capacitybuilding interventions useful in improving adults’ effectiveness in their interactions 

with young children. Other common capacity-building interventions include 

teaching and training, clinical supervision, and psychotherapy. Although a 

specific mental health consultation may incorporate one or more of these 

techniques, the consultative approach is distinctly different from that of its three 

“cousins.” A summary of relationships between these approaches is as follows:

 Teaching and training. A traditional teacher or trainer chooses the content 

and format of the information to be conveyed. By contrast, a mental health 

consultant to an early childhood program provides information on topics 

specifically requested by program staff. Teaching is commonly used as a 

tool in the consultative process, but much of that teaching is informal and 

involves various forms of modeling, rather than presentations in a typical 

classroom format.

 Clinical supervision. Both clinical supervisors and mental health 

consultants help program staff improve their skills to understand 
Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation

5

and accomplish their work and to increase their capacity to master 

future problems. A supervisory relationship implies administrative and 

legal accountability of staff members for following the supervisor’s 

recommendations, but in a consulting relationship, staff take 

responsibility for deciding whether or not to implement the consultant’s 

recommendations.

 Psychotherapy. In therapy, as in consultation, a client seeks assistance 

(or treatment) to solve a problem. Both therapeutic and consultative 

relationships are characterized by genuineness and trust, and the goal of 

each is to foster the client’s understanding. Therapists focus on personal 

problems, but consultants do not. Consultants may look at the factors in a 

staff member’s experience that contribute to his subjective perception of 

the situation. Sometimes, consultants may suggest that a staff member seek 

therapeutic services; at other times, the consultation can have coincidental 

therapeutic results. But consultation is mainly focused on improving the 

effectiveness of the individual staff member in her specific work.

The important tools of training, clinical supervision, and therapy span a continuum 

of overlapping supports and processes. Mental health consultants use these 

strategies often. However, it is important to differentiate between the goals and 

features of the various strategies to avoid confusing the role of the consultant with 

the role of other professionals, such as counselors or therapists. The underlying 

principle is that mental health consultants work directly with staff members, not 

with children.

A variety of factors enter into choosing the best intervention to address a particular 

issue. They include the following:

 specific goals of the mental health consultation,

 nature of the issues or concerns,

 setting,

 availability of mental health practitioners and other experts in the field,

 time frame, and

 cost.

The Flower Street Child Care Center decided to enlist a mental health consultant to 

help Mary develop a strategy regarding Robert for the following reasons:

 The situation required problem solving. The goal of the intervention was 

to work with Mary to develop a plan to help center staff address more 

effectively their concerns about Robert’s behavior.

 Mary wanted to build her capacity not only to respond more effectively to 

Robert and his family, but also to master similar problems in the future.

 The goal of this consultation was only indirectly related to the child. The 

overarching objective was to enhance the staff’s and the family’s capacity 

to work together toward the mutual goal of enhancing Robert’s emotional 

development.
6 FOREWORD SECTION II  Definition and Description of Types of Mental Health Consultation

TYPES OF EARLY CHILDHOOD MENTAL HEALTH CONSULTATION

Early childhood mental health consultation generally advises programs in one of 

two approaches. One approach focuses on a particularly challenging child or the 

family of that child; the other addresses a general program issue that impacts the 

mental health of staff, children, or families.

Child- and Family-Centered Consultation

Child- and family-centered consultation is the most traditional form of mental 

health consultation. Staff initially seek the assistance of a mental health consultant 

because they are worried, alarmed, or frustrated by a particular child’s behavior. 

The primary goal of this type of consultation is to develop a plan to address both 

the factors that contribute to a child’s difficulties in functioning well in the early 

childhood setting and the family’s role.

Like Robert, children who experience difficulties may generate feelings of anxiety, 

anger, or even guilt in child care staff and families. Moreover, parents and parentchild interactions evoke complex emotions in staff that may make it difficult 

for them to respond in ways that support the parents and the child, and the 

relationships between them (Johnston, 1998).

Because they were concerned about Robert’s behavior, Mary and other staff 

became resentful when they felt Mr. G had not “heard” their concerns: They 

blamed the father for Robert’s behavior. 

The initial step in the consultation process was for the consultant to understand 

the staff’s feelings toward Robert and his father and to respond to the staff’s 

immediate need to obtain parental consent for the consultation. After listening to 

and empathizing with staff, the consultant elicited strategies that staff had used 

successfully in the past to involve parents. As staff and the consultant developed 

trust and mutual respect, they began to plan nonthreatening strategies to 

introduce the consultation service to both parents.

In contrast to the approach she had taken with Mr. G, this time Mary asked

Mrs. G whether she could remain at the center the following day for several 

minutes to talk about Robert. Mary also arranged for the teacher’s aide to take 

over her class at the end of the day. In the privacy of the teacher’s lounge, Mary 

initiated the conversation by describing some of Robert’s favorite activities, 

described the friends with whom he played, and talked about his love for finger 

painting. Mary asked Mrs. G about Robert’s favorite activities at home, and she 

shared with Mrs. G her observations of Robert’s strengths and talents at child 

care. When Mrs. G seemed at ease, Mary asked her about Robert’s sleeping and 

eating habits and learned that he was having many of the same difficulties at 

home that he was having at the center.

Mary explained to Mrs. G how the mental health consultant could assist both 

center staff and her family in responding better to Robert’s needs. Only then did 

Mary request and obtain consent for the consultation. Mary told Mrs. G that 

her husband had said he opposed the consultation, so the mother and teacher 

discussed ways in which Mr. G could be approached with more success.
Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation

7

Several days later, the mental health consultant helped Mary plan ways to bring 

Robert’s father back into the discussions about Robert, to avoid generating 

conflict between the two parents.

To assess Robert’s abilities, limitations, vulnerabilities, and strengths, the 

consultant visited the center and observed him at various times during the 

course of a day. The consultant assessed the quality of the interactions in the 

room—both those involving Robert and those involving the other children. Child 

care staff worked attentively at feeding the children, setting up and cleaning 

up materials, and conducting small-group activities, such as reading books. 

Staff members responded warmly to the children with verbal expressions that 

reflected many of the children’s activities and behaviors. In the classroom, Robert 

was observed to be a loner, preferring to play by himself rather than with other 

children.

After lunch, staff helped all the children go to their cots for nap time and 

dimmed the lights in the room. All the children, except Robert, fell asleep almost 

immediately. Robert had started protesting “no sleep” as soon as he realized it 

was nap time. He cried loudly each time the aide would try to leave his side. 

During this time, both Mary and her aide shuttled back and forth trying to 

respond to his requests (water and a book), threatening a “time-out” when nap 

time was over and, finally, holding his hand until he went to sleep. He did not 

fall asleep until about 15 minutes before the other children began to awaken.

In a subsequent conversation, Mrs. G told the consultant that after a fight 

some months ago, during which her husband had physically hurt her, Mrs. G 

awakened Robert and his 4-year-old brother and took them to her sister’s home. 

They stayed there for about 3 weeks. Mrs. G managed to transport both boys to 

and from the center every day so that she could work her day job. She also left 

them at her sister’s house during the night and on weekends when she went to 

her second job.

Although the boys were familiar with their aunt, they both cried every time their 

mother would leave. During these 3 weeks, the boys had no contact with their 

father, about whom Robert asked constantly. About 3 weeks later, Mrs. G and 

the children returned to their home. She stated that there had not been a violent 

incident since her return.

Then the consultant and Mrs. G discussed possible ways to work with staff, with 

Robert, and with Mr. G, taking into consideration the new information that Mrs. 

G had provided.

Mr. G never consented to meet the consultant at the center, but he agreed, 

warily, to meet her at home. During the home visit, Mr. G spoke in a soft voice 

and responded to the consultant’s questions monosyllabically. He did not 

discuss the time when his wife and children moved out of the house. Observing 

the interactions between Mr. G and Robert, the consultant noted that Mr. G 

understood and responded warmly (and sometimes playfully) to Robert’s 

expressed needs and desires. Mr. G was far more affectionate with Robert than 

with his elder brother. The consultant later learned that the elder boy was not 

Mr. G’s own son.
8 FOREWORD SECTION II  Definition and Description of Types of Mental Health Consultation

Observation of Robert at home and at the center helped expand the consultant’s 

understanding of Robert and his family. In subsequent meetings with center staff 

(one of which Mrs. G attended), the participants considered the mental health 

ramifications of Robert’s experience. The mental health consultant, with both 

parents’ permission, explained her observations to help staff understand and 

interact better with Robert.

Initial discussions focused on how Robert might have felt when he abruptly left 

home in the middle of the night and no longer saw his father—to whom he 

was very attached—without explanation. Also, despite Mrs. G’s efforts to protect 

her elder son, Mr. G constantly reprimanded or punished him, clearly favoring 

Robert. Witnessing his father’s disparate behavior was very confusing for Robert, 

who could not account for the difference in treatment, and Robert frequently 

perceived his mother as taking his elder brother’s side.

Mr. and Mrs. G and center staff were better able to understand Robert’s 

reactions to the unpredictability of his abrupt separation from his father and 

to the confusing behavior of his mother. The consultation increased the staff’s 

understanding of Robert’s needs and helped them consider how they might 

respond to these needs.

With the consultant’s assistance, staff developed new strategies to help Robert 

develop a sense of predictability. For example, the same staff member greeted 

Robert each morning when he arrived at the center. Staff anticipated the 

transition to and from nap time, establishing a routine and “rules” under which 

Robert would always be given the same toy and a book that the teacher’s aide 

would read before he went to sleep. Periodically, Mary asked each parent about 

Robert’s behavior at home.

The mental health consultant met with both Mr. and Mrs. G in their home one 

additional time and discussed ways to enhance Robert’s sense of predictability 

and stability. The family made the important step of acknowledging the feelings 

and needs underlying Robert’s behavior. However, the family only partially 

used the mental health consultation, because they did not follow up on the 

recommendation to obtain family counseling for issues related to domestic 

violence and the relationship between Mr. G and Robert’s elder brother.

Mental health consultation in this case also helped staff consider the need 

to establish stronger relationships with the children’s parents, to be able to 

share with parents their own observations and understandings of children’s 

experiences at the center. Rather than comply with the agency’s requirement 

of conducting only initial needs assessments, staff decided to communicate 

informally and regularly with parents, sharing anecdotes that provided parents 

with opportunities to participate in their children’s experiences at the center. 

As a result, the parents’ participation increased, and staff gained a better 

understanding of the children in their care. 

Case consultation around individual children who exhibit difficult behaviors is 

not always sufficient to solve behavioral or emotional problems. To help those 

children, some early childhood programs have developed therapeutic groups, such 
Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation

9

as the Early Childhood Group Therapy Program (Shahmoon-Shanok, 1998). By 

their nature, these therapeutic groups involve a disproportionately high percentage 

of children who exhibit significant behavioral difficulties. Early childhood mental 

health consultation in such groups is directed toward addressing the needs of 

staff working with these children. The Day Care Consultants Program of San 

Francisco, for example, meets with staff regularly to enhance their understanding 

of children’s individual needs and the skills used to address them (see Appendix 

A). The consultants sometimes meet with the parents of these children to offer 

immediate assistance and, when necessary and mutually agreed upon, to provide 

referrals for mental health treatment and other community-based support services 

to the families (Johnston, 1998).

Programmatic Mental Health Consultation

Mental health consultation to programs focuses on (1) improving the overall 

quality of the program or agency and (2) assisting the program in solving a 

specific issue that affects more than one child, staff member, and family.

Consultation to programs usually takes a preventive perspective. By identifying 

strategies to improve the overall quality of care, the consultation empowers staff 

to enhance the healthy social and emotional development of children and the 

functioning of families—and of staff members, too.

Typically, the mental health consultant in early childhood settings is called on 

to engage staff and families in assessing a problem and designing a plan to deal 

with specific issues within the overall program. In programmatic mental health 

consultation, the consultants usually do not focus on individual children; rather, 

they facilitate the program’s success in reaching such objectives as:

 developing a mental health approach to strengthen the quality of the 

program, including a staff development plan;

 developing opportunities for staff to discuss their concerns and to examine 

how stress affects their work;

 providing a forum to explore cultural differences and workplace conflicts; 

and

 providing a “safe space” in which staff members can identify, examine, and 

discuss their feelings about their relationships with children and families.

Initial mental health consultation with Mary regarding Robert expanded to 

a more programmatic concern: devising better channels of communication 

between staff and parents. Also, the issues of instability and unpredictability in 

Robert’s life were seen as relevant to all the children in a number of ways and 

became an important theme for staff discussion.

Many features of a family- or center-based child care program or a home-visiting 

program resulting in a request for consultation on particular children can help 

promote the healthy emotional development of all children or identify early signs 

of emotional and behavioral difficulties (Johnston, 1998). For example, the specific 

recommendations and interventions designed to help Robert are generalizable to 

other aspects of the classroom setting.
10 FOREWORD SECTION II  Definition and Description of Types of Mental Health Consultation

Consultation with the goal of improving the overall quality of the program need 

not always be an expansion of child- or family-centered consultation. Programs 

also can make specific requests for early childhood mental health consultation to 

improve their ability to respond to the needs of all young children in their care.

The program consultation in Robert’s case ultimately aimed to assist all staff 

in moving beyond the usual parent involvement activities and their practice of 

involving families only at times of crisis. The focus of the consultation shifted 

purposefully to developing collaborative relationships between staff and families 

to actively promote the emotional well-being of the children.

At the request of staff in this classroom, the mental health consultant and 

staff of the entire center—having developed a mutually respectful and 

trusting relationship—held a series of weekly meetings. Through these weekly 

consultations, staff began to realize their importance to parents, and they 

discussed ways that they could be supportive to families. For example, staff 

could help families acknowledge and understand both their child’s strengths 

and the child’s areas of difficulty. Also, staff could explain to parents the role of 

the mental health consultant in helping staff and parents better understand a 

child’s behavior. As staff—and parents—begin to understand a child’s behavior 

more comprehensively, they are better able to respond empathetically and 

appropriately. Another recommendation that may stem from these discussions is 

for staff to assist parents in understanding how consultation can help them with 

child rearing, as well as to ensure that parents are linked with other appropriate 

supports.

Other related issues that had an impact on the mental health aspects of the 

program became apparent to the consultant as she worked with Mary and 

other staff members. In reviewing the way information was shared with Mr. 

and Mrs. G, the consultant observed the staff’s lack of knowledge regarding the 

cultural background of Robert and his family. Knowing how culture influences 

communication, behavior, and interactions between staff and families and 

among staff, she suggested that the program director focus on the staff’s 

cultural competence. She also recommended further consultation with an 

expert in the field.

In Robert’s case, the consultant helped a child care provider develop a specific 

strategy to engage Robert’s parents so that staff and parents together could plan 

effective ways to help Robert. Child care staff were then able to generalize this 

strategy and apply it in a programmatic way to all parents. With the consultant’s 

guidance, staff began to examine which interactions between staff and families 

promoted or inhibited the goal of engaging the parents in working with them to 

enhance the child’s development.
Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation

11

SECTION III 

Essential Features of Early Childhood 

Mental Health Consultation

Although great diversity characterizes the disciplines, services, and systems involved in early childhood mental health consultation, its essential features 

include:

 a collaborative relationship,

 problem-solving and capacity-building goals,

 issue specificity and time limitation, and

 consultants with a set of specific skills.

This section discusses each of these features.

COLLABORATIVE RELATIONSHIPS

In the consultation process, two (or more) professionals with different areas of 

expertise usually can solve problems more effectively than if just one works alone 

to tackle the problem. The mental health consultant and early childhood staff 

are viewed as experts in their own fields. The consultant has no authority over 

the early childhood staff, who are free to accept or reject any of the consultant’s 

suggestions. Although the consultant may recommend certain interventions, staff 

maintain sole responsibility for carrying them out.

In consultation, a productive working relationship is not taken for granted; rather, 

it develops over time. Strong personal relationships enable a consultant and staff 

to establish the trust and mutual respect essential to “hearing” each other and 

being able to discuss issues despite differences of opinion. As the consultant 

becomes more familiar with the program, she is better able to offer useful ideas. 

The most effective consultant is on site every week (or day) at an expected time.

The following five principles (Bertacchi, 1996) provide the context for relationshipbased work between the consultant and staff members:

1. Respect for the person. This principle implies an attitude of positive 

regard toward individuals, including a recognition of both strengths and 

vulnerabilities. Respect involves an awareness of differences of opinion and 

an appreciation for different cultures, perspectives, and areas of expertise. 

Developing respect makes getting to know the consultant and the staff 

member a priority in establishing a relationship.

2. Sensitivity to context. The staff member and the consultant must 

understand each other as influencing and being influenced by their 
12 FOREWORD SECTION III  Essential Features of Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation

environment. For example, working in a high-risk neighborhood impacts 

the relationship between consultant and staff, staff and children, and staff 

and families.

3. Commitment to evolving growth and change. Consultants dedicated 

to promoting the mental health development of young children must be 

equally committed to acknowledging and promoting development and 

growth of caregivers (families and staff).

4. Mutuality of shared goals. Consultant and staff member relationships 

are rooted in shared goals for families, children, and the program. Sharing 

and communicating goals, an ongoing process, occurs throughout the 

consultation.

5. Open communication. At the beginning of a consultation, the consultant 

clarifies the channels and forums for discussion with staff members and 

other organization members or the family. They all must communicate 

regularly, frequently, and consistently.

To initiate a productive working relationship, the consultant and staff members 

discuss the roles that they both will take in the consultation. This step ensures 

that both the consultant and early childhood staff have an opportunity to express 

their preferences and that they both understand and agree on the basic parameters 

of consultation. In this initial discussion, it is critical for both parties to recognize 

the importance of a coordinated, nonhierarchical relationship in achieving the 

mutually agreed-upon goals. When staff members believe they have something 

important to contribute, they are more likely to avoid the following potential 

pitfalls:

 taking a less active role in developing a solution to the issue of concern,

 feeling threatened or defensive, and

 feeling reluctant to express disagreement or reservation when problem 

solving begins.

PROBLEM-SOLVING AND CAPACITY-BUILDING GOALS

The primary role of early childhood mental health consultants is to assist staff 

working in early childhood programs in addressing concerns and solving problems 

regarding either specific children and families or certain elements of their program. 

The underlying—and explicit—goal of the consultation is to help staff members 

develop attitudes and skills that enable them to function more effectively with 

specific children, as well as to respond adeptly to similar issues in the future 

(Parlakian, 2001).
Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation

13

Effective problem solving and capacity building involve three steps: assessment 

of the problem or issue, selection of the best intervention strategies, and 

implementation of a jointly developed plan. Each step is described below.

1. Assessment. In the assessment stage, the consultant and staff together 

examine the issues. A wide range of factors may be relevant to a problem 

and the possible strategies to solve it, including characteristics of the 

child, the family, and staff, as well as those of the immediate and larger 

environment. The consultant and staff usually begin their assessment 

by identifying and considering these factors. (Appendixes B and C list 

questions to consider in child- and family-centered consultations and 

program-centered consultations, respectively.)

A broad initial assessment is critical, because variables that are ignored 

during assessment are rarely considered in defining the problem and 

developing a solution. For example, the consultant and staff members 

may not be aware of system-level factors (such as lack of a certain type of 

resources or a culturally specific way to view the problem) that are critical 

to resolving the issue.

As the consultant and staff examine the issues presented, they better 

understand the complexities. In many cases, more skilled consultants 

differ from their less skilled counterparts in the amount of time they spend 

clarifying and defining the situation. Skilled consultants are less likely to 

start planning a strategy to cope with an ill-defined problem; they know it 

is critical to spend sufficient time both to assess the relevant factors and to 

clarify the goals of the interventions.

During the assessment stage, issues related to the evaluation of the 

consultation should be considered (see below).

2. Selection of interventions. The ultimate decision on which intervention 

strategy to select must rest with staff. Skilled consultants work with staff 

members to select interventions that are both effective and doable. In the 

early stages of strategy selection, the consultant can discuss with early 

childhood staff the types of interventions that they have found to be 

successful in the past that would be appropriate to implement in the current 

situation.

Effective consultation requires the intervention selected to fit within the 

staff’s workload capability. In determining the amount of work involved, 

consultants and staff must consider the following:

 time needed to design, implement, and monitor the intervention;

 time needed to learn the intervention;

 appropriateness of the intervention to the program philosophy;

 impact on the family and the immediate and larger environment;
14 FOREWORD SECTION III  Essential Features of Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation

 length of time that the intervention is expected to be in place before the 

natural environment or the staff member assumes maintenance of the 

change; and

 expected results of the intervention.

Another important consideration in selecting an intervention is cultural 

competence. Consultants’ expertise must include sensitivity to the staff’s 

and families’ beliefs about the causes of a problem, and the consultant must 

try to match treatment rationales to these beliefs. For example, one aspect 

of the Navajo culture is a holistic approach to mental health wellness. 

Families may view developmental problems as a result of disharmony 

within that natural system. Within the Navajo belief system, interventions 

must be geared to regaining harmony through traditional means rather 

than through mainstream interventions. Mental health consultants to early 

childhood programs that serve special populations are more likely to guide 

the program to success if they acknowledge and respect these beliefs when 

they design interventions.

3. Implementation of the plan. To facilitate the successful implementation 

of the plan in the early childhood environment, it is important that the 

consultant consider the staff’s level of understanding and skills.

Other factors to be taken into account during the implementation of the 

plan include:

 arranging opportunities for frequent contact between staff and the 

consultant,

 providing support to build the staff’s capacity to confront similar 

problems in the future,

 considering cultural issues as the plan is implemented, and

 noting any observations that will be helpful later in evaluating the 

consultation.

ISSUE SPECIFICITY AND TIME LIMITATION

Mental health consultation usually is requested when in-house expertise is 

insufficient or unavailable to deal with a specific issue. Usually, mental health 

consultation supplements other problem-solving strategies within a large agency, 

but the consultation process unfolds somewhat differently in each service setting. 

Because the consultant often is constrained by time limitations when assisting 

program staff in dealing with a specific issue, it is essential that the consultation 

involve effective entry, contracting, termination, and evaluation processes. Each 

process is described below.

1. Entry. Entry refers to the consultant’s introduction into an early childhood 

program (for example, Head Start, early intervention, or family support). 

The process, which usually begins with a preliminary exploration of the 

match between program needs and the consultant’s skills, takes various 
Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation

15

forms, depending on whether the consultant has been engaged by 

invitation or secured for the program by an administrator or a monitoring or 

accrediting agency. During one or more early meetings, the consultant and 

staff members exchange information. Topics may include basic descriptive 

information about the program, perceived staff needs, specific precipitating 

issues (if any), desired outcomes, information on the consultant’s skills and 

working style, and a description of how the consultation might proceed. 

Fees and time frames also may be discussed.

The entry process involves the formal introduction of the consultant and 

staff to each other. It often is a good strategy to introduce the consultant 

during a staff meeting, when he can describe his role and the services to 

be provided and can answer staff members’ questions. This introduction is 

particularly important for external consultants. 

Some agencies use internal consultants who are members of the 

organization to which they consult; typically, these internal consultants 

enjoy established relationships of trust with their service-provider 

colleagues. Internal consultants must take care to avoid ignoring entry 

issues, because moving immediately into problem-solving aspects of 

the consultation can lead to later misunderstandings. It is important 

for an internal consultant to delineate her role and relationship to the 

administration (for example, the information that will be shared and the 

confidentiality of her evaluation of staff performance) at the start of each 

new consultation.

2. Contracting. When the consultant and official representatives of the 

organization reach consensus about the consultant’s usefulness to the 

organization, they move into contracting. Contracting in this context refers 

to negotiation and agreement between the consultant and the organization 

regarding the nature of the consultation and the financial arrangements. 

Although contracting may not involve a formal written contract, particularly 

when internal consultants are involved, the outcome of the activity is the 

same as that of negotiating a written contract—clear understanding and 

agreement by both parties of the responsibilities of each.

Many potential problems about role, termination, method of intervention, 

and focus of the consultation can be prevented by creating a clearly 

written letter of agreement between the contracting parties. In addition, 

documenting understandings is critically important later in assessing the 

success of the consulting process.

The consultant’s and staff’s expectations must be aired, agreed on, 

and documented during the early stages of consultation. These initial 

agreements often are renegotiated and updated as the consultation 

progresses, but the expectations developed in the initial stages usually 
16 FOREWORD SECTION III  Essential Features of Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation

provide a strong framework for the process. Examples of topics to explore 

during the contracting stage (in no particular order) follow. (The consultant 

and staff may discuss some of these topics during the entry stage.)

 goals or intended outcomes of consultation,

 possibility of change in goals and outcomes as consultation proceeds,

 confidentiality of service and the limits of this confidentiality,

 time frames,

 expectations of staff members,

 times when the consultant will be available,

 possibility of contract renegotiation if change is needed,

 consultation fee and duration of consultation,

 consultant’s access to sources and types of information within the 

organization,

 person to whom the consultant is responsible,

 role of families,

 steps to take if the consultant is concerned about the teacher or another 

staff member, and

 steps to take if staff have concerns about the consultant.

3. Evaluation. The evaluation stage of consultation consists of a series of 

ongoing consultant-staff interviews to address key issues. The consultant 

and the staff member meet to determine the following:

 degree of goal attainment,

 nature of consultant-staff relationship,

 effectiveness of implementation of the plan, and

 next steps for the consultation process (continuation, renegotiation, or 

termination).

Data for making these determinations include primarily observations 

that begin during the assessment stage and continue throughout the 

consultation process. During the assessment stage, it is critical to determine 

who will do the evaluation, who will receive the evaluation, and how to 

measure the changes.

Two types of evaluation are important in consultation: formative and 

summative. Formative evaluation occurs during implementation of the plan; 

summative evaluation occurs after completion of the consultation.
Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation

17

 Formative evaluation constitutes a continuous feedback loop that 

includes all key players, such as families, staff, the consultant, and 

administrators. They determine how well an intervention strategy is 

working and whether or not adjustments must be made. One possible 

outcome of formative evaluation is that the family, the consultant, 

and the staff member decide that the interventions developed must 

be reworked, and they return to the strategy-selection stage. Or, a 

staff member might decide that the original conceptualization of the 

problem was incorrect, so the consultant and staff might return to the 

problem-definition stage.

 Summative evaluation is generally a more formal process. Although 

summative evaluation can provide corrective feedback, most frequently 

it is used to assess overall effectiveness. Summative evaluation often 

is undertaken to communicate results to funders, policy makers, and 

other decision makers. But staff also are interested in the effectiveness 

of consultation relative to the skills and attitudes of individual staff 

members and the operation of the overall organization, the cost 

benefits of consultation, and the satisfaction of staff members and 

families.

Programs may resist evaluating the consultant-recommended interventions 

because of the added cost or the difficulty of the evaluation, or both. All 

parties will gain valuable information, however, by planning for evaluation 

early in the consultation process; by addressing issues of interest to the 

consultant, the staff member, and program management; and by defining 

the goals of consultation in a precise manner to allow measurement 

(Alkon, Ramler, & MacLennan, 2003).

An example of a summative evaluation is provided by the Miriam and Peter 

Haas Fund Early Childhood Mental Health Initiative. This initiative assessed 

the effect of mental health consultation and services on 25 early childhood 

classrooms in San Francisco serving low-income children ages 2 to 5. The 

goal of the evaluation was to determine whether and how mental health 

consultation and services impact child care quality and teachers’ selfefficacy and sense of confidence in their ability to manage children with 

behavioral and emotional difficulties. Selected findings of this evaluation 

include the following:

 Teacher self-efficacy showed a significant improvement. After a 

minimum of 1 year of intervention, teachers were far more hopeful 

about the future of the children in their care and more confident about 

their ability to make a positive difference.

 Both teachers and directors saw improvement in teachers’ understanding 

of child development and teachers’ ability to manage difficult behavior. 

 Child care staff felt that the consultation resulted in a center 

environment that can better include parents as partners.

 Mental health consultation did not have a significant impact on 

the global quality of centers, as measured by the Early Childhood 

Environment Rating Scale.
18 FOREWORD SECTION III  Essential Features of Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation 

 Mental health consultation did not have an impact on teacher-child 

interactions in the domains of sensitivity, harshness, or detachment, as 

measured by the Arnett Caregiver Interaction Scale.

 Teachers interviewed in focus groups after working with the mental 

health consultant for a year felt they had a greater capacity for empathy 

with children, were more curious about the meaning of difficult 

behavior, and took on more responsibility for changes in the classroom. 

These teachers also thought they had gained skills in observation and 

assessment (James Bowman Associates, 1992).

4. Termination. Termination of the consultation generally occurs when staff 

and the consultant agree that the problem that prompted consultation has 

been resolved, but earlier termination is also an option. The issue of when 

to terminate the consultation should be addressed early in the consultation.

An important step in the termination process occurs when the consultant 

gradually begins to withdraw his active support from staff members, who begin 

autonomously to implement the processes they have learned from the consultant. 

Consultants should discuss their impending departure openly, validate the staff’s 

success, and encourage staff to continue their efforts on their own.

SKILLS OF CONSULTANTS

Although states license diverse types of professionals as mental health providers, 

the most commonly licensed specialties are child psychiatry, clinical psychology, 

clinical social work, marriage and family therapy, counseling, and psychiatric 

nursing. Roundtable participants recommended that mental health consultants who 

interact with staff, families, and young children be state-licensed mental health 

professionals with the following skills and areas of expertise (Hansen & Martner, 

1992):

 knowledge of child developmental milestones (the expected characteristics 

and course of normal growth and development of young children 

and a basis for identifying atypical behavior in infants, toddlers, and 

preschoolers);

 understanding of the concepts underlying young children’s socio-emotional 

development, such as attachment, separation, and the ways in which 

relationships shape development;

 ability to integrate mental health activities and philosophies into group 

settings;

 observation, listening, interviewing, and assessment skills;

 understanding of cultural differences (cultural competence);

 ability to work with adults and knowledge of adult learning principles;

 sensitivity to the community’s attitudes and strengths (including community 

resistance to mental health services);
19

Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation

 knowledge of alternatives in treatment, including behavioral interventions;

 skills to discern the difference between resistance and culturally appropriate 

behavior; 

 knowledge of family systems;

 ability to recognize the staff’s diverse perspectives and to help communicate 

these perspectives; and

 knowledge of early childhood, child care, family support, and early 

intervention systems, both public and private.

The consultant must also have specialized knowledge of, and experience related 

to, the topics of concern to the staff member and issues of relevance to the 

communities and families that the consultant serves. Examples of such specialized 

content include, but are not limited to:

 separation and loss;

 substance abuse;

 maternal depression;

 adolescent mothers;

 abuse and neglect issues;

 childhood mental health disorders;

 failure-to-thrive infants;

 children with aggressive behavior;

 low birth-weight infants;

 infants, toddlers, and preschoolers with developmental disabilities; and

 working with fathers.

The consultation process will be effective in bringing about change only when 

staff believe that the consultant understands the problem, perceives the need for 

action, and provides support to staff in carrying out the desired change. Therefore, 

the effective consultant not only has expertise in the particular content area in 

which she offers assistance, but also has the interpersonal skills to motivate staff to 

take action. The following interpersonal skills are critically important for entry and 

building of alliances with families and staff members:

 Warmth is the skill of listening to the staff member and the family and of 

communicating care and commitment.

 Empathy is the ability to convey the consultant’s understanding of the staff 

member’s subjective experience.

 Respect is the ability to suspend judgment and to communicate that the 

staff member is valued.
Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation

21

SECTION IV 

Challenges and Strategies in the Consulting Process

Early childhood mental health consultants may encounter critical challenges in their work. This section presents a discussion of the challenges and 

suggestions for ways to address them. The challenges include:

 difficulty in implementing the intervention plan;

 organizational setting;

 value conflicts;

 racial, ethnic, and socio-economic issues;

 lack of mental health professionals with early childhood consultation 

experience; and

 funding.

DIFFICULTIES IN IMPLEMENTING THE INTERVENTION PLAN

Staff members may find it difficult to follow through on the plan developed in the 

consultation process for these reasons:

 Ambiguity. The consultant’s expectations may not match those of staff. 

This situation can arise when insufficient structure has been introduced 

early in the consultation and when staff members do not fully understand 

the consultation process. The consultant and staff can avoid ambiguity by 

carefully discussing the consultation process at the outset, by writing a plan 

with concrete behavioral objectives and outcomes, and by occasionally 

revisiting the plan as the process continues.

 Overwork. Consultants sometimes fail to remember that staff members are 

involved in a variety of activities. Consultants may take too much of their 

staff members’ time in meetings (especially internal consultants), or they 

may design interventions that require just too much extra work. Awareness, 

careful scheduling, and choice of interventions that require less time can 

reduce the risk of encountering this barrier to effective consultation.

 Complexity of the intervention. The design of the intervention is a 

major determinant of the outcome of the consultant’s efforts. Interventions 

aimed at change must be tailored to the setting, to the provider, and to the 

power structure. In addition, the consultant should suggest interventions 

that increase some aspect of the staff member’s comfort, require little 

change in the agency, do not threaten the worker’s approach, and can be 
22 FOREWORD SECTION IV  Challenges and Strategies in the Consulting Process

communicated easily. Depending on the complexity of the intervention, it 

may be more difficult for staff members to implement the plan.

For example, consultants sometimes suggest that family child care providers 

use behavior modification charts to help change the behaviors of young 

children. This strategy has been found to be successful in some settings, 

but it is particularly difficult to implement when only one person cares for 

several children. In addition, the time required to learn and implement this 

intervention is significant, which may temporarily reduce the child care 

provider’s effectiveness.

 Entrenched habits. Individuals, families, groups, and organizations 

develop traditions in how they function and relate. A tradition, or habit, 

develops mainly because the practice is both comfortable and successful. 

The habit also may be continued, even when it is no longer successful, 

because of concern that new practices may make matters worse. New 

approaches threaten tradition—the “way we’ve always done it”—and may 

create ambiguity and even fear related to the staff member’s competence in 

doing his job.

Changing entrenched habits requires first an acknowledgment that fear of 

the unknown and concern about the consequences of change are normal 

coping behaviors. Consultants should communicate thoroughly the need for 

the change, the design of the change strategies, and the implications of the 

change for the people involved. As noted above, a relationship of mutual 

trust between those initiating the change and those who will be affected 

most by it is essential to break through these barriers.

ORGANIZATIONAL SETTING

The setting in which consultation takes place also affects follow-through in the 

consultation process. Unfortunately, programs sometimes hire mental health 

consultants who are unfamiliar with the organizational complexities of early 

childhood and child care centers for young children, or with issues related to 

quality of care and outcome, or with the challenges of involving parents. Even 

experienced consultants may find their work complicated by such organizational 

issues as shoestring budgets, overworked staff, high staff turnover, and low 

morale. Other barriers may include staff burnout, autocratic decision-making 

processes, and inadequate community resources. 

To deal effectively with organizational variables, consultants must begin the 

process by defining the organizational structure, by establishing the consultant and 

staff roles and the boundaries of those roles within the organization, by setting 

achievable goals, and by establishing accountability. Many other circumstances 

can facilitate or impede the consultant’s work, such as the level of administrative 

support for consultation and agency change, the level of trust afforded consultants, 

the agency’s process of implementing change, the relationship between staff 

and administration, the agency consensus about approaches to children with 

challenging behaviors and their families, and overt and covert agency attitudes 

toward the families, children, and other agencies. 
Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation

23

The consultation process may provide a forum, when appropriate, for developing 

and implementing such interventions as systems-oriented staffing, staff educational 

programs, or skill development seminars, which may help address an agency’s 

organizational issues.

VALUE CONFLICTS

The traditional approach to mental health focuses mainly on an individual’s 

problems. The strengths-based approach to mental health (which is increasingly 

gaining favor in the field) assumes that an individual’s strengths and capacities can 

play an important role in assessing a problem and designing and implementing a 

treatment plan.

Acknowledging that families and children struggle with mental health issues may 

seem inconsistent with the strengths-based approach. Rather than focus only 

on a child’s specific emotional, social, or behavioral problems, mental health 

consultants and child care staff can approach the identified problems within the 

context of the individual or family strengths and the family’s ability to use support 

services effectively.

Taking the traditional approach may not adequately capitalize on the strengths 

that families show when they acknowledge the problems they face and seek the 

support and treatment they need. It is essential to be aware of strengths as mental 

health consultants address problem areas.

RACIAL, ETHNIC, CULTURAL, AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC ISSUES

Successful consultation requires the consultant to be both culturally empathic and 

culturally knowledgeable. Cultural empathy requires a rational understanding of 

cultural differences. It also requires that the consultant understand and appreciate 

the staff member’s culture (and the child and family’s culture, if appropriate), view 

the problem through the staff member’s eyes (and the family’s eyes), and adapt 

both style and technique to the cultural perspective of the staff member (and the 

family). Intolerance in any form from the consultant can give rise to resistance, 

not only from culturally different families and staff, but also from anyone who is 

sensitive to and supportive of the special needs of these and other groups.

In addition, consultants working in cross-cultural situations should be aware that 

cultural differences between the consultant and the staff member may present 

challenges to the success of the consultation. Addressing these differences openly 

and nonjudgmentally is essential.

Effective cross-cultural consultants have an awareness of their own personal 

values, a well-developed awareness of their personal consultation styles, cultural 

empathy, and the ability to adapt interventions appropriately to meet staff 

members’ needs.
24 FOREWORD SECTION IV  Challenges and Strategies in the Consulting Process

LACK OF MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONALS WITH 

EARLY CHILDHOOD CONSULTATION EXPERIENCE

Agencies, staff, and families who interact with young children may find it 

difficult to identify local mental health consultants who are trained in both child 

development and family systems, who understand the complexities of the child 

care and early childhood education systems, and who have training or experience 

in working with families and staff facing multiple challenges. In addition, few 

higher education programs provide mental health training courses that teach 

students how to be consultants.

On the positive side, Daycare Consultants of San Francisco (see Appendix A) and 

the Institute for Clinical Studies of Infants, Toddlers, and Parents in New York City 

offer specialized training to mental health professionals in early childhood mental 

health consultation. For information on this institute, contact Rebecca ShahmoonShanok, Child Development Center, Jewish Board of Family and Children’s 

Services, 120 W. 57th Street., New York, NY 10019.

FUNDING

One of the most frequently cited barriers to mental health consultation is lack of 

funding. Some programs cited in Appendix A are funded through grants from 

private foundations, universities, model demonstration programs, and other timelimited funding sources that may be difficult to sustain.

A number of publicly funded programs address the mental health needs of young 

children, including:

 Head Start and Early Head Start;

 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA; both Part B, Section 619, 

and Part C);

 Mental Health and Substance Abuse Block Grants;

 Child Care and Development Fund;

 Child welfare funds, such as Title IVE of the Social Security Act;

 Maternal and Child Health Block Grant under Title V of the Social 

Security Act;

 Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, which has 

replaced Aid to Families with Dependent Children, used in states to support 

the inclusion of children with special needs (including mental health needs) 

in community child care settings; and

 Medicaid.
Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation

25

Federal legislation requires several of these programs to collaborate with other 

publicly funded programs at the national, state, and local levels. The 1997 

reauthorization of IDEA adds stronger requirements for this kind of collaboration 

to Special Education programs under Part B to match the responsibility for 

interagency cooperation under the Part C Program for Infants and Toddlers.

A significant source of revenue for many programs receiving mental health 

consultation services is Medicaid. Medicaid eligibility is highest for young 

children under age 6, and through its Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnosis, 

and Treatment program, it must provide or pay for the full range of health and 

mental health services needed by each Medicaid-enrolled child. This support can 

include mental health consultation with an enrolled child’s teacher or program. 

This requirement remains in force when a state Medicaid program contracts with 

managed care programs to deliver Medicaid services to eligible children and 

their families. In fact, under managed care systems, considerable flexibility and 

significant incentives have emerged to promote consultative services. In some 

instances, mental health providers may be able to demonstrate both lower cost of 

consultation services and potential for improved outcomes.

Obtaining funds for program consultation is much more challenging than paying 

for child-focused consultation. Head Start is one of the few programs that 

acknowledge the importance of both child- and program-focused mental health 

consultation in their performance standards. It is also one of the few sources that 

provide some funding for these services.

Because child care and other early childhood programs typically are inadequately 

funded or understaffed, making it difficult to pay for additional services or 

staff development, interagency collaboration is essential to build the advocacy 

resources needed to find flexible funds to pay for mental health consultation. 

Some states and communities are beginning to recognize the benefits of providing 

mental health services to young children and their families at home, in child care, 

and in other early childhood programs, and they are using creative approaches 

to plan, provide, and pay for services (Bazelton Center for Mental Health and 

the Law, 1998). A few of these initiatives are summarized below. For more 

information, contact the Georgetown University Center for Child and Human 

Development (see Section VI, “Selected Resources”).

 Vermont is using a statewide planning process to provide regionally driven 

mental health services and supports to young children with mental health 

needs and their families. Under the leadership of the state mental health 

and child welfare agencies, other relevant child-serving programs, agencies, 

universities, and many family members are involved in the process.

 North Carolina has a special category of Medicaid funding called High Risk 

funding. Any child under age 3 who is found to have even one risk factor 

for mental illness is eligible for a broad range of mental health services. 

North Carolina also has a Smart Start initiative that enhances the ability 

of child care and Head Start staff to serve children who need specialized 

interventions.
26 FOREWORD SECTION IV  Challenges and Strategies in the Consulting Process

 Several counties in California are saving money through a reduction in 

psychiatric hospitalizations for older children and adolescents. The counties 

then “reinvest” these funds in early intervention. 

 Anne Arundel County, Maryland, has implemented an initiative based on a 

county-wide needs assessment that identifies as its highest priority young 

children with behavioral problems who are at risk for removal from child 

care. The county is using county funds to establish a multi-tiered service 

system that includes a “warm line” for telephone consultation, on-site 

training and behavioral consultation to child care providers, and behavior 

management training.
Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation

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SECTION V 

Conclusions and Recommendations for Action

The early Roundtable participants recognized that increasing numbers of young children in early childhood, early intervention, child care, and home-visiting 

programs are at risk for developing mental health problems, and that staff and 

families often lack the skills and resources to manage and respond effectively 

to these children. More emphasis must be placed on integrating a mental health 

perspective into these programs. Ongoing mental health consultation is one 

pathway to reach this goal.

They agreed on the following guidelines for early childhood mental health 

consultation:

 Early childhood mental health refers to a comprehensive perspective on 

social and emotional well-being in young children and on the processes 

that support it, including family and caregiver functioning and the context 

of young child-adult relationships.

 To make a difference in the lives of young children and their families, 

mental health professionals should identify the children’s social and 

emotional disorders, delays, and risk conditions and should design and 

implement appropriate interventions as early as possible.

 Stable, nurturing, and enduring relationships are basic prerequisites for 

mental health. 

 Programs should be designed to promote staff well-being and functioning 

through training, supervision, and ongoing consultation and support.

Those participants offered the following recommendations to agencies and systems 

that seek to create responsive programs and interventions, as well as to individuals 

who are responsible for funding, educating, or providing early childhood mental 

health consultation.

ADMINISTRATORS OF COMMUNITY-BASED PROGRAMS

 Operationalize the agency’s commitment to integrate a mental health 

perspective into all parts of the program or system. Several aspects of 

the agency’s administrative, financing, personnel, and compensation 

infrastructure may require changes to support a mental health perspective. 

For example, if the consultation process results in the recommendation that 

a provider have more interaction with family members, the family contacts 

must be valued and approved by supervisors, counted as in-service hours, 

and included in the provider’s job evaluation.
28 FOREWORD SECTION V  Conclusions and Recommendations for Action 

 Maximize all available sources of funding, not only private funding, but also 

Medicaid and other public funding sources, strategically and creatively.

 Hold mental health consultants to the highest standards of respect for the 

early childhood education and child care programs and staff.

 Include managers and supervisors in decision making regarding the 

mental health consultation process. Develop an infrastructure for open 

communication among consultants, supervisors, and staff.

POLICY MAKERS AND FUNDERS

 Fund programs that offer or aim to develop a continuum of highquality mental health services designed to promote the well-being and 

functioning of early childhood program staff. Such services include training, 

supervision, and regular long-term consultation and support.

 Assist state agencies (those serving children) that should collaborate to 

develop an Early Childhood Mental Health Plan for all professionals, 

providers, and parents involved in such programs as Early Head Start and 

Head Start, family preservation, TANF, early intervention, health and mental 

health, child care, and education. Professional provider groups and service 

delivery systems should address the training and support of staff for early 

childhood mental health.

 Help sponsor the development of approaches to early childhood mental 

health consultation that can be adapted for various program settings and 

populations. An integral part of the development of these models should be 

the evaluation of their effectiveness with children, families, and staff. Then 

disseminate information on these approaches.

 Offer financial incentives (or build requirements into current grants) to 

universities and other mental health programs to train students to provide 

consultation to early childhood programs and systems.

EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS

 Review pre-service curricula to train early childhood and mental health 

providers and consultants who have the skills to work with each other, 

across agencies, and in partnership with families and communities.

 Structure training activities for early childhood and mental health 

professionals (for example, social workers, counselors, psychologists, 

and psychiatrists) to recognize the changing milieu in which services are 

provided. Although managed care settings may provide access to and 

continuity of services, incentives to reduce such services are encouraged 

and may compete with mental health professionals’ decision-making ability.

 Guide and support faculty members who place students and monitor 

their field-site (practicum) experiences. Encourage student placement as 
29

Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation

consultants in community-based agencies and systems working with young 

children and their families.

 Develop strategies for recruiting and retaining students from 

underrepresented groups in mental health disciplines to serve ethnic and 

linguistic communities and families more effectively.

 Allocate research dollars to demonstrate the efficacy of providing mental 

health consultation to staff in child care settings for the benefit of young 

children and their families.

CONSULTANTS

 Work with agencies and systems to develop an ongoing early childhood 

mental health component and to incorporate it into staff development 

plans. Relevant, accessible information can help providers understand 

the mental health context and ways to use consultants to help them do a 

better job.

 Create forums for community-based agencies; administrators; early 

childhood, early intervention, and child care providers; support staff; 

parents; and other service providers to define the specific issues that can be 

addressed through early mental health consultation.

 Disseminate findings of evaluation studies that demonstrate the efficacy of 

providing consultation and mental health services to young children and 

families.
Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation

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SECTION VI 

Selected Resources

The following resources support programs in implementing early childhood mental health strategies:

 Head Start Information and Publications Center Warehouse

P.O. Box 26417

Alexandria, VA 22313-0417

Telephone: 703-683-5767; 1-866-763-6481

Fax: 703-683-5769

Web site: www.hskids-tmsc.org

 National Technical Assistance Center 

for Children’s Mental Health

Georgetown University Center for Child and Human Development

3300 Whitehaven Street, N.W., Suite 3300

Washington, DC 20007

Telephone: 202-687-8807

Fax: 202-687-8899

Web site: www.georgetown.edu/research/gucdc/index.html

 Zero to Three: National Center for Infants, Toddlers, and 

Families

2000 M Street, N.W., Suite 200

Washington, DC 20036-3307

Telephone: 202-638-1144

Fax: 202-638-0851

Web site: www.zerotothree.org
Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation

33

APPENDIX A 

Selected Programs

Several models of early childhood mental health consultation are described in this section. Contact information is given for each program.

DAYCARE CONSULTANTS, INFANT-PARENT PROGRAM

Daycare Consultants, a component of the Infant-Parent Program (IPP) at the 

University of California, San Francisco (Johnston, 1998), was founded in 1988 to 

address the needs of child care providers and to expand the role of mental health 

professionals within the child care setting. The program provides case-centered 

and programmatic consultation to caregivers serving children from birth to age 5. 

Two of the child care sites where Daycare Consultants provides early childhood 

mental health consultation also have integrated therapeutic playgroups into their 

regular child care milieus.

Before starting the Daycare Consultants project, the infant-parent psychotherapists 

in the IPP program were involved with the child care system because child 

care is frequently prescribed by the same professionals who refer families for 

infant-parent psychotherapy. The often misplaced hope is that child care, in 

addition to providing respite for the parents of difficult children, will serve as an 

intervention for the children. The infant-parent psychotherapists realized that the 

tasks of child care providers are very challenging. It is especially so for those with 

limited training and experience, large classrooms, and little or no assistance in 

understanding the extraordinary expressions of need posed by children whose 

early relationship experiences have been difficult and, therefore, make them 

challenging to manage.

Daycare Consultants responds to requests for case consultations on individual 

children (birth to age 6) who demonstrate behavioral or developmental problems 

in their child care centers. The consultant observes the child in the program to 

assess his functioning and the match between the child’s needs and the child 

care program. The goal of the consultation is to enhance the providers’ ability 

to understand, willingness to persevere, and ability to intervene effectively with 

difficult children.

The consultant meets weekly with child care center staff to interpret the 

meaning of the child’s behavior, to provide ideas on appropriate interactions and 

interventions in a group setting and, in general, to support staff.
34 FOREWORD APPENDIX A  Selected Programs

The consultant works directly with the families of those children for whom case 

consultations are initiated. The goals of the consultation with families include:

 assessing the impact of the child’s past experiences on current functioning,

 providing guidance by suggesting available resources related to parenting 

practices,

 helping parents explore and implement more appropriate child-rearing 

practices, and

 promoting better understanding and mutual support between parents and 

child care staff.

The consultant helps families secure additional, mutually agreed-upon resources 

for the child. The consultant then acts as a liaison between the child care center 

and such direct service providers as counselors and family therapists.

Daycare Consultants believes that the usefulness of consultation is not limited to 

acute situations in which caregivers are especially worried, alarmed, or frustrated 

by a particular child’s behavior. The organization draws a parallel to concerns 

about the nutritional needs of children in child care only at the point at which 

signs of malnutrition appear in one child. Through program consultation, staff 

take a proactive approach to combating the ill effects that poor quality care has 

on children by creating an atmosphere in which the mental health of all children 

in programs is protected. This consultation is a preventive strategy designed to 

ensure the healthy growth and development of children by improving the overall 

quality of their relationships and their environment. In bi-weekly meetings with 

the program’s staff and director, the consultant assists with all aspects of program 

planning, that is, from improving communication among staff to implementing 

developmentally appropriate practices with the children.

The cost of early childhood mental health consultation to a program is $250 

a child. The consultant spends an average of 10 hours a week at the center. 

Consultation costs usually are covered by special grants, but in some cases, fees 

are paid by the early childhood programs.

Daycare Consultants’ services were evaluated as part of the Miriam and Peter Haas 

Fund Early Childhood Mental Health Initiative evaluation conducted by James 

Bowman Associates. This 1-year evaluation assessed the effect of mental health 

consultation and services on 25 early childhood classrooms serving children ages 

2 to 5 (see the evaluation description in Section III, “Essential Features of Early 

Childhood Mental Health Consultation”).

In certain cases, consultants may broaden their primary mandate and advise 

child care staff to provide direct services to children and their families. For 

example, Daycare Consultants’ therapeutic playgroups are co-led by a mental 

health professional and a child care provider who is a member of the child care 

center staff. Six or seven children participate in each of these playgroups three 

times a week. Within this environment, the co-leaders help the children make 

choices; organize their experiences; differentiate, label, and cope with emotions; 
Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation

35

communicate needs and ideas; and deal with anxieties and conflicts. The 

consultants meet regularly with both child care staff and the children’s families.

Contact: Kadija Johnston

Program Coordinator, Daycare Consultants

Infant-Parent Program

University of California at San Francisco

SFGH

2550 23rd Street, Building 9, Room 130

San Francisco, CA 94110

Telephone: 415-206-5082

Fax: 415-206-4722

DEVELOPMENTAL TRAINING AND SUPPORT PROGRAM, 

OUNCE OF PREVENTION FUND

The Chicago-based Ounce of Prevention Fund (OPF) works with community-based 

programs that support families of adolescent parents (usually mothers) and their 

children. OPF allocates funding, assists with program design and implementation, 

and monitors program activities. Although programs vary from community to 

community, each offers parent education and peer support, plus weekly or 

biweekly home visiting. Programs also share the common goals of helping teenage 

parents return to school, obtain vocational training, secure appropriate child care, 

and provide for the health and safety of their children. The programs aim to reduce 

subsequent pregnancies, child abuse, and neglect among the families they serve.

The target population of the Developmental Training and Support Program (DTSP) 

includes pregnant or parenting young mothers ages 13 to 21 and their children. The 

program provides ongoing training and consultation to home visitors, parent group 

facilitators, and supervisors for a 2-year period. The aim is to assist program staff in 

developing supportive, helping relationships with families, so that staff in turn may 

help teenage parents develop positive relationships with their young children.

The goal of the DTSP is to help programs and staff shift from a parent-centered 

approach that focuses on parents’ crises to a parent-child relationship approach 

that builds on family strengths to enhance successful family and child development. 

Through consultation, the program enables home visitors to work through the 

frustrations of intractable problems and gives supervisors greater structure for 

overseeing home-visiting staff. It also promotes new standards for interactions 

between home visitors and parents, and between parents and children.

The following paragraphs describe the key elements of DTSP’s intervention.

The main strategy for consultation is the use of home videos as a tool to enhance 

parent-child communication. The videos, developed by staff, feature parents and 

young children engaged in daily routines. The production and review of the home 

videos with staff and parents occur within the context of positive staff-parent 

relationships. With the consultant’s help, the home videos allow parents, home 

visitors, and executive staff to see for themselves how parents communicate with 

their children. 
36 FOREWORD APPENDIX A  Selected Programs

Consultants meet with staff (program directors, supervisors, home visitors, 

and parent group facilitators) in all-day consultation and training sessions 

once a month for 2 years. The goals of this consultation include learning how 

to (1) develop positive relationships, (2) observe and interpret parent-child 

interactions, (3) use these observations with parents to build on strengths present 

in the teenage parent-child relationship, and (4) use inquiry as an intervention.

Each consultation group has 8 to 10 home visitors (each home visitor serves 15 to 

20 families) and about 10 to 15 supervisors and managers.

During the consultation meetings, the home-visiting, supervisory, and executive 

staff develop new insights into parent-child relationships and learn new ways to 

bolster relationships within the families they serve and also among program staff. 

The most critical content of each monthly meeting is distilled from discussions of 

the work that staff members currently do with families. DTSP facilitators encourage 

participants to discuss what goes well in their everyday work with families, why it 

might be happening, and how staff members contribute to the successes they see.

As staff review the home videos of the parents interacting with their children, 

they learn to look for and support those aspects of the parent-child relationship 

that have mutual benefits for both parents and children. This model provides 

the context for building the observation skills of workers. Staff learn to identify 

positive interactions and to point them out to parents as strengths to build on. 

When interactions cause concern, staff learn to ask questions, to gather more 

information, and to clarify what they have seen, rather than to make assumptions 

or to try to fix a situation or relationship. Supervisors, along with direct service 

providers, learn the skills of objective observation, inquiry, and supporting 

strengths.

Another goal of the consultation is for parents to learn to make their daily routines 

enjoyable rather than burdensome. This goal is accomplished by (1) involving 

the children during home visits; (2) making home videos of daily routines 

and reviewing them with the parents, emphasizing the positive interactions; 

(3) using Parent-Child Observation Guides to increase parents’ awareness 

of their relationships with their children; and (4) conducting developmental 

demonstrations using parents as co-demonstrators.

This type of early childhood mental health consultation implements a crucial 

sequence of support: supervisor and staff, staff and parent, and parent and child 

all learn from and respond to one another. The DTSP calls this sequence a chain 

of enablement.

The cost of the program ranges from $500 to $1,000 a day, depending on 

the qualifications and experience of the consultant. Average contact between 

consultant and staff or parents is between 1⁄2 day and 1 day a month. The 

consultation is financed by special grants or from training funds that are part of the 

regular program budget.
Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation

37

Documented outcomes of the DTSP include the following:

 Staff and parents stay in the program longer.

 Staff develop skills to focus on the parent-child relationship, even in the 

face of multiple family crises.

 Staff and parents indicate satisfaction with the program.

 Parent-child communication improves over time (as noted on Parent-Child 

Observation Guides).

 Staff turnover decreases.

Contact: Victor Bernstein

Department of Psychiatry

University of Chicago

MC 3077

5841 S. Maryland Avenue

Chicago, IL 60637-4949

Telephone: 773-702-4045

DAY CARE PLUS, A POSITIVE EDUCATION PROGRAM

Day Care Plus is a collaborative effort of the Cuyahoga County Mental Health 

Board, a children’s mental health agency, and a child care resource and referral 

organization in Cleveland, Ohio (Bowdish, 1998). The program is designed to 

meet the needs of children under age 6 at risk, their parents, and staff of the day 

care centers they attend. The goals of the program are to improve the social, 

behavioral, and emotional functioning of children in child care at risk, as well as 

to increase the competencies of the parents and child care staff.

Early identification, screening, and intervention services are provided to child 

care settings. Parents receive information about intervention strategies to use at 

home and about appropriate services available in the community. Mental health 

consultation, training, and crisis intervention services are provided to child 

care staff, and the project’s interventionists work with staff to develop specific 

behavioral interventions for children who display signs of emotional or behavioral 

problems.

Day Care Plus has worked with 22 centers. Fourteen centers receive intensive 

consultation and 8 centers are on “follow-along” status. Every family with a child 

under the age of 6 years is eligible to receive services. There are approximately 

340 staff and 1,175 children in the 22 centers. Approximately 25 to 30 families 

receive intensive, individualized services.

The program costs approximately $20,000 to $25,000 a center for 1 year. This 

cost includes the consultant fee, as well as money for other services, such as 

transportation and resources for families. Each consultant can carry five intensive 

consultative sites or four intensive sites and three to four follow-along sites. 
38 FOREWORD APPENDIX A  Selected Programs

A research study was designed and is currently being conducted by the Cuyahoga 

County Community Mental Health Board (the mental health authority), the 

Positive Education Program (the mental health agency), and the Cuyahoga Mental 

Health Research Institute. Twenty centers were recruited and paired based on 

the socio-demographic characteristics of the population served, the composition 

of staff, and the nature of the program. One member of each matched pair was 

randomly selected to receive Day Care Plus services. The other sites participate in 

the control group, with the understanding that they will be among the first sites 

eligible for expanded Day Care Plus services at the conclusion of the research 

demonstration phase.

The baseline measures on children, parents, and staff were gathered in spring 

1997. Follow-up measures occurred at 12 and 20 months. Both qualitative and 

quantitative data were gathered. 

The objectives for children focus on behaviors. Needs assessment data that led 

to the development of this project revealed that children often are expelled from 

child care because their behavioral problems create a risk for themselves and 

others. The study compares the number of expulsions at the service sites with 

the number at the control sites. It is hypothesized that, compared with expulsions 

during an equivalent period before the project’s implementation, there will be a 

greater reduction in the number of expulsions at the experimental service sites 

than at the control sites.

For parents, the program and research focus is on the ability to manage a 

child’s problematic behaviors. The project also helps parents obtain appropriate 

community supports to meet their needs and their children’s needs. A greater 

increase in the number of referrals to direct services for the service sites is 

expected.

The project also is designed to improve the competencies of child care staff. 

Specific goals include: 

n increased ability to identify children who are at risk;

n increased ability to provide appropriate interventions and behavioral 

strategies;

n improved staff-parent relations; and

n reduction of staff stress, burnout, and turnover.

Focus groups have been held with center staff to gain insight into their ability 

to identify children at risk and to provide appropriate interventions. Baseline 

focus groups have identified several primary challenges: poor and insufficient 

and inconsistent communication among the adults in a child’s life, inadequate 

teacher education and training, and a lack of parent support group meetings. 

It is expected that the introduction of Day Care Plus services will diminish 

staff stress and burnout, leading to a reduction in staff turnover. Staff turnover, 

including information on why staff leave an organization, is monitored 

throughout the project.
Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation

39

Preliminary outcome data indicate a reduction in expulsion and a high level of 

participation. Staff and parents expressed the need for creating a follow-along 

track, through which consultants continue to provide consultation.

Contact: Sally D. Brown

Day Care Plus Program Manager

Positive Education Program

3100 Euclid Avenue

Cleveland, OH 44115

Telephone: 216-361-4400 x147

KIDSCOPE

KidSCope of Chapel Hill and Hillsborough, North Carolina, provides 

comprehensive mental health services to young children who experience 

emotional, social, behavioral, and developmental difficulties (KidSCope, 1998). 

Services are available to all Orange and Chatham County children ages 6 and 

under. Anyone may refer a child to KidSCope, provided that she has the consent 

of the child’s parent or guardian. Services, which include screening, evaluation, 

intervention planning, and support, are tailored to address the unique needs of 

each child, his family, and child care center staff. Through home and office visits, 

and flexible scheduling, counselors make consultation services accessible and 

convenient for families.

KidSCope’s five counselors provide consultation in approximately 40 programs 

every year. The cost of each counselor is about $40,000 a year. Costs are covered 

by grants from public and private foundations, local and state moneys, and 

Medicaid funds. 

Consultants are mental health professionals trained to address the emotional and 

social issues unique to very young children. Areas of staff expertise include child 

development, family relationships and processes, early care and educational 

practices, and behavioral and therapeutic interventions. 

KidSCope counselors provide consultation to families and child care staff to assist 

them in addressing the difficulties experienced by the referred children through 

the following continuum of services (from least intensive to most intensive):

n information and referral,

n workshops for child care providers and parents,

n child care consultation (not child specific),

n child and family screening,

n child-specific consultation,

n home visiting,

n parent counseling,

n service coordination, and

n Family Transitional Learning Classroom.
40 FOREWORD APPENDIX A  Selected Programs

The Family Transitional Learning Classroom program is a family-focused early 

intervention and prevention program offered by KidSCope. It provides an 

alternative therapeutic classroom setting for preschoolers who have had longstanding emotional and behavioral difficulties. It offers family education and 

support, in addition to information and consultation to the child’s mainstream child 

care setting about child management and special behavior techniques.

During the 1997–98 school year, 100 percent of the children in Chatham County 

programs served by KidSCope maintained their enrollment. In Orange County,

95 percent of the children in KidSCope programs maintained their enrollment.

Contacts: Linda Foxworth, KidSCope Director

Flora Dunbar, Staff Psychologist

OPC Mental Health/KidSCope

500 N. Nash Street

Hillsborough, NC 27278

Telephone: 919-644-6590 (Linda Foxworth)
Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation

41

APPENDIX B 

Assessment in Child- and Family-Centered 

Consultation

The following questions are important for the the consultant and center staff member to consider:

Child

n What is the history of this child in this setting?

n What are the behaviors of concern?

n When do the behaviors tend to occur?

n What are the child’s strengths and abilities?

n What are the developmental issues to be considered?

n How does the child interact with staff? the family? other children?

n What cultural factors must be considered?

n What feelings does the child elicit from the staff?

Family

n How does the family view the situation? Is this view similar to the 

staff’s view?

n What are the family’s expectations for the child and the program?

n What are the family’s strengths and resources?

n What types of interventions are acceptable to the family?

n What constraints in the family must be considered?

Staff Member

n How does the staff member view the issues?

n What are the staff member’s expectations for self, family, and child?

n What intervention skills does the staff member possess?

n What types of interventions are acceptable to the staff member?
42 FOREWORD APPENDIX B  Assessment in Child- and Family-Centered Consultation

n Does the staff member have the necessary knowledge, skills, objectivity, 

and confidence to respond to the particular concerns raised?

Immediate Environment

n What are the philosophies of the classroom, program, and organization, and 

how do they influence the consultant and the staff member?

n What aspects of the environment contribute to, influence, reinforce, or 

maintain the child’s behavior?

n What external resources may be available (for example, extended family 

and a smaller group in the center)?

n What constraints in the immediate environment must be considered?

Larger Environment

n What larger environmental (community) characteristics contribute to the 

problem?

n What factors outside of the immediate environment affect the child’s 

behavior?

n Are the changes proposed for the child or staff member consistent with 

family, agency, and community norms and expectations?

n Are the proposed changes and change strategies culturally appropriate for 

this child and this staff member?
Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation

43

APPENDIX C 

Assessment in Program Consultation

The following questions are important for the consultant and staff members to consider in program consultation:

n What is most important about this agency?

n For what does the agency most want to be known?

n How are decisions made or policies changed?

n How does each staff member understand the program’s “mandate”?

n How is the program or agency regarded by staff, families, and other 

agencies?

n How is the agency regarded by the general public?

n How do staff explain the situation that prompted the consultation?

n What do staff think needs to change in order for the concern to be 

addressed?

n Do staff view their relationships with clients as positive or negative, as 

generally successful or failing, or as accomplishing the agency’s mandate 

or not?

n Do staff feel a sense of satisfaction from their work with children and 

families?

n Do staff feel angry with families, with children, or with other staff members? 

If so, why?

n Do staff appear interested in gaining new skills for working with young 

children and their families?

n What is the quality of the early childhood program?

The following questions relate to content-based program consultation (which is 

different from general staff development training):

n What is the agency’s treatment regarding the presenting consultation issue?

n What actions has the agency taken to address the concern?

n What human, financial, and program resources can the agency use to 

address the presenting consultation issue?
44 FOREWORD APPENDIX C  Assessment in Program Consultation

n Can any program models or agency interventions be applied to the 

consultation issue?

n What are the organization’s covert and overt expectations of the consultant?

The following questions relate to inter-staff relationship consultation (for example, 

staff do not get along with one another, a high degree of conflict exists between 

two staff members, or a fierce split occurs between a staff member and a 

manager):

n Who defined the problem as requiring a consultation?

n For whom is it a problem?

n For whom is it not a problem?

n Who first identified the problem?

n Who talks to whom about it?

n Do some people identify other problems as more pressing?

n How has the system solved similar problems?
Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation

45

APPENDIX D 

List of Contributors

• Anne Mathews-Younes, Ed.D., Director, Division of Prevention, Traumatic 

Stress, and Special Programs (DPTSSP), and Gail F. Ritchie, M.S.W., Prevention 

Initiatives and Priority Programs Development Branch/DPTSSP/Center for 

Mental Health Services, SAMHSA, provided invaluable support throughout the 

duration of the project.

• Jane Knitzer, Director of the National Center for Children in Poverty, Columbia 

University School of Public Health, has demonstrated long-standing leadership 

in advocating for improved mental health services for children and families.

• Maria dela Cruz Irvine, among other tasks, helped with the research on 

program descriptions.

• Katherine Froyen edited several versions of the monograph.

• Lauren Abramson, Marva Benjamin, Freddie Bettinger, Joan Dodge, Kadija 

Johnston, Edward Feinberg, Emily Fenichel, Betty Tableman, Victoria Vestrich, 

and Deborah Weatherston thoughtfully reviewed the manuscript and provided 

insightful comments and suggestions.

• Hortense DuVall edited the latest version of the monograph. Claude Tybaert 

did the layout and design of the latest version of the monograph.

Roundtable on Mental Health Consultation Participants:

• Lauren Abramson, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland

• Gina Barclay-McLaughlin, Chapin Hall Center for Children, Chicago, Illinois

• Victor Bernstein, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois

• Fredericka Bettinger, consultant, Charlestown, Rhode Island

• Elena Cohen, Educational Services, Inc., Washington, D.C.

• Joan Dodge, Georgetown Child Development Center, Washington, D.C.

• Gloria Elliott, La Clinica del Pueblo, Washington, D.C.

• Edward Feinberg, Anne Arundel County Infants and Toddlers Program, 

Glen Burnie, Maryland

• Emily Fenichel, Zero to Three, Washington, D.C.

• Lynn Harvey Clement, Center for Mental Health Services, Rockville, Maryland

• Kristen Hansen, Georgetown Child Development Center,* Washington, D.C.

• Marisa Irvine, Georgetown Child Development Center,* Washington, D.C.

• Kadija Johnston, University of California, San Francisco, California

• Roxane Kaufmann, Georgetown Child Development Center,* Washington, D.C.

• Amy Locke Wischmann, Georgetown Child Development Center,* Washington, 

D.C.

• Sue Martone, Office of Early Childhood, Substance Abuse and Mental Health 

Services Administration (SAMHSA), Rockville, Maryland
46 FOREWORD APPENDIX D  Participants in Roundtable on Mental Health Consultation 

• Anne Mathews-Younes, Center for Mental Health Services, Rockville, Maryland

• Lynn Milgram-Mayer, Early Head Start Program, Alexandria, Virginia

• Jim Rast, Labette Mental Health Center, Parsons City, Kansas

• Gail Ritchie, Center for Mental Health Services, Rockville, Maryland

• Pat Salomon, Office of Early Childhood, Center for Mental Health Services, 

Rockville, Maryland

• Rebecca Shahmoon-Shanok, Institute for Clinical Studies of Infants, Toddlers, 

and Parents, New York, New York

• Betty Tableman, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan

• Mary Telesford, Federation of Families for Children’s Mental Health, 

Alexandria, Virginia

• Victoria Vestrich, parent consultant, Falls Church, Virginia

• Deborah Weatherston, Merrill-Palmer Institute, Detroit, Michigan

• Maria Wolverton, Georgetown Child Development Center,* Washington, D.C.

*Now known as the Georgetown University Center for Child and Human 

Development 
47

Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation

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DHHS Publication No. CMHS-SVP0151

Printed 2005