Downloads & Resources

The following is a list of publicly available resources offered by FAIMH.
= PDF = Web Link = MSWord Document = PowerPoint

American Academy of Pediatrics. Strategies in Children's Mental Health: A Chapter Action Kit Rating and Improvement Systems
   The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Task Force on Mental Health (TFOMH) has developed Strategies for System Change in Children's Mental Health: A Chapter Action Kit to assist AAP chapters in addressing and improving children's mental health in primary care in their state. The Chapter Action Kit focuses on the following 6 core action areas that provide strategies for improving children's mental health programs and services:

Maximizing Resources from the Stimulus Package - Possible Strategies for Funding Quality Rating and Improvement Systems
   The federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009, the "Stimulus Package," includes a number of appropriations that have relevance for early childhood policy and systems change. Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRIS) are increasingly seen as a foundational piece of systems-building strategies, since they enable states to leverage resources and bring other components such as standards and professional development into alignment with one another. This memo discusses potential resources for early childhood under the Stimulus Package, and identifies ways that these funds could be used to support QRIS. .

Preventing Mental, Emotional, and Behavioral Disorders Among Young People: Progress and Possibilities
   Mental, emotional, and behavioral (MEB) disorders - which include depression, conduct disorder, and substance abuse-affect large numbers of young people. Studies indicate that MEB disorders are a major health threat and are as commonplace today among young people as a fractured limb-not inevitable but not at all unusual. Almost one in five young people have one or more MEB disorders at any given time. Among adults, half of all MEB disorders were first diagnosed by age 14 and three-fourths by age 24.

Many disorders have life-long effects that include high psychosocial and economic costs, not only for the young people, but also for their families, schools, and communities. The financial costs in terms of treatment services and lost productivity are estimated at $247 billion annually. Beyond the financial costs, MEB disorders also interfere with young people's ability to accomplish age and culturally appropriate developmental tasks, such as establishing healthy interpersonal relationships, succeeding in school, and making their way in the workforce.

THE IMPACT OF EARLY ADVERSITY ON CHILDREN'S DEVELOPMENT
   What happens in early childhood can matter for a lifetime. To successfully manage our society's future, we must recognize problems and address them before they get worse. in early childhood, research on the biology of stress shows how major adversity, such as extreme poverty, abuse, or neglect can weaken developing brain architecture and permanently set the body's stress response system on high alert. Science also shows that providing stable, responsive, nurturing relationships in the earliest years of life can prevent or even reverse the damaging effects of early life stress, with lifelong benefits for learning, behavior, and health.

THE IMPACT OF EARLY ADVERSITY ON CHILDREN'S DEVELOPMENT
   What happens in early childhood can matter for a lifetime. To successfully manage our society's future, we must recognize problems and address them before they get worse. in early childhood, research on the biology of stress shows how major adversity, such as extreme poverty, abuse, or neglect can weaken developing brain architecture and permanently set the body's stress response system on high alert. Science also shows that providing stable, responsive, nurturing relationships in the earliest years of life can prevent or even reverse the damaging effects of early life stress, with lifelong benefits for learning, behavior, and health.

Economics - Early Childhood issue - Heckman
   Every so often I hear someone question the importance of having highly trained people working in child care. In fact many, if not most, of our federal and state programs in the United States that fund child care are doing it as part of workforce development, not as a priority to help parents support the optimal development of their children...we fund it just so parents can work. The fact that such funding is so minimal that most child care workers earn only slightly more than minimal wage gets overlooked, and, all too often, we are getting only what we pay for. Meanwhile, Head Start and Early Head Start have never been appropriately funded.

Many people feel that anyone can take care of young children, that all it takes is love. Many others want their children to get a major education while in child care, even though the overwhelming majority of children are not ready for that, and kindergarten and first grade teachers tell us that the issues creating the greatest difficulty for them is not this intellectual component, but is instead a social and emotional deficit associated with a serious lack of self-control.

There are many issues that families confront in raising their children. Increasingly, it is being recognized that the environment in which a child and family exist plays a major role how successful that child is likely to be as an adult. The policies of the United States generally and the individual states in particular do not yet take this into account.

Please download the this article and provide it to others including your legislators.
2008 FAIMH Conference Documents

Babies Need Bathwater Peter A. Gorski, M.D., M.P.A.
   PowerPoint File | View as Webpage
   Policies that Promote Rights and Routes to Well-Being
FAIMH 2008 Keynote Speech
   BIRTH OF A NATION
   The Lanyard
   Page 12 poem for Hala

Sensory Integration and Infant Mental Health:
Maximizing Potential in Special Needs Populations Overview of SI
FAIMH Update - May 2008
   Florida Association for Infant Mental Health Strategic Planning Update
IMH3levels.pdf
  1. Strengthening the Caregiver/ Child Relationship, Responsive Caregiving
  2. Developmental, Relationship-Focused Early Intervention
  3. Infant Mental Health TreatmentThe

FAIMH Key Concepts
   Florida's Strategic Plan for Infant Mental Health Summit - January 17, 2007

Department of Health Strategic Action Agenda
   Final Report on Updating the Florida Infant Mental Health Strategic Plan with Assignments of Implementation Tasks by Organization or Individual

Florida's Strategic Plan for Infant Mental Health Status Report - DRAFT Jan-07
   This project develops a plan for building a system of mental health services for young children and their families in Florida, adds to the research base by piloting infant mental health projects, increases public awareness, advocates for appropriate state policies and programs, builds workforce capacity and explores potential funding sources for training and services.

What is infant mental health?
   Does the term "infant mental health" make you think of a baby on a couch telling his problems to a psychiatrist? So what is infant mental health? Infant mental health reflects both the social-emotional capacities and the primary relationships in children birth through age five.

The Development and Evaluation of the Intervention Model for the FAIMH Pilot Program
   The focus of this paper is on the development and evaluation of an intervention model for Florida's Infant and Young Child Mental Health Pilot Program, designed to identify children at risk for abuse and neglect and their families, and to provide clinical evaluation and treatment services.

Zero to Three National Training Institute IMH Presentation
   Lessons Learned in Infant Mental Health
Training at 3 Levels: Creating A Role for Everyone
    Evolution of Best Practice Infant Mental Health Is...
    Infant Mental Health is the developing capacity of
    the child from birth to 3 to...
    Infant Mental Health refers to an infant's ability to...

Intervention Strategies for Infants and Toddlers with FAS
   Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders are the leading causes of preventable mental retardation and are a major public health problem. We will discuss:
    What is it?
    How does it affect people?
    What can we do about it?

National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
      (NICHD) Free Materials Order Form
   Order form for free information about various issues related to early childhood. These can be copied without restriction. They are available in English and in some cases Spanish and can be helpful for countries outside of the United States as well.

They can either be downloaded and copied or an agency can send away for a copy and then add its logo and take it to a printer to make copies. Let me reinforce that there is NO RESTRICTION ON THEIR USE.

As you review the list of these materials that come from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, one of the institutes of the National Institute of Health, you should be able to determine usage of at least a few of these items. They can be provided to parents, child care directors, Head Start and Early Head Start directors, doctors' offices, utilized as handout materials at Health Fairs and Parenting Fairs. There are undoubtedly other uses as well that will be apparent as you review the list of resources.

= PDF Adobe Acrobat | = Movie, Flash Video