Health & Well-being
We work to ensure equity in access to health and wellness programs, especially for those that have been historically marginalized and/or underserved, with a focus on BIPOC and families struggling with poverty, mental illness and systemic injustice.
Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation (ECMHC)
We consult, train and support the ECMHC staff for the State of Colorado on Equity, Diversity & Inclusion. Through our programming, Mental Health Providers are paired with professionals in childcare settings to provide tools and inform best practices for healthy social & emotional development for all children.
Why Early Childhood?
Children’s brains, their capacity for learning and implementing new and essential skills develop rapidly in the first few years of life. From birth to the early elementary years, children’s social and emotional skills are constantly advancing in the following areas:
Experiencing, regulating and expressing a range of emotions.
Developing close, satisfying relationships with other children and adults.
Actively exploring their environments and learning, especially through play.
Early development of social and emotional skills is the foundation for literacy, numeracy and other cognitive skills essential for school readiness and future life success. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), “Increasingly, legislation to enhance social and emotional well-being in early learners is seen as a crucial component to promoting success in school.”
Improve children’s social skills and emotional functioning
Promote healthy relationships
Reduce challenging behaviors
Reduce the number of suspensions and expulsions
Improve quality of early learning environments
Reduce provider stress, burnout, and turnover.
ECMHC has been shown to:
Addressing Exclusionary Discipline
Suspensions and expulsions at the early childhood level can disrupt school readiness and contribute to the “preschool to prison pipeline.” As such, our ECMHC team is dedicated to dismantling these oppressions at every level. We are dedicated to supporting equitable environments through our culturally responsive and community-based ECMHC services.