Updating the evidence: A systematic review of a decade of Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation (IECMHC) research.

Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation (IECMHC) is a preventative, capacity-building intervention in which mental health professionals partner with early childhood professionals to indirectly improve the environments and relationships that young children experience. Prior research has demonstrated that IECMHC is associated with positive outcomes for children, teachers, and classrooms. Over the past decade, IECMHC implementation and research have expanded, warranting an updated review. The current paper provides an update of the IECMHC evidence base. Included studies (n = 16) were systematically gathered, screened, and coded for context, intervention characteristics, methods and measures, outcomes across ecological levels, and alignment with the IDEAS Impact Framework's guiding questions. Our analysis replicates prior reviews, describing the positive impact of IECMHC on outcomes such as child externalizing behavior, teacher self-efficacy, and teacher-child interactions. Beyond updating prior reviews, this analysis describes emerging, nuanced findings regarding the mechanisms of change and the differential impact of IECMHC. We augment our review with descriptions of evaluations that did not meet our inclusion criteria (e.g., IECMHC in the home visiting context, unpublished evaluation reports) to provide context for our findings. Finally, we provide policy and practice implications and articulate an agenda for future research.

Committed to Caring: Cluster-Analysis of Appraisals and Feelings of Family Childcare Work.

Background: There is a concern regarding the decreasing number of family childcare (FCC) providers, due to the population that primarily relies on it. Compared to studies of center- and school-based preschool practitioners, the FCC literature is lacking robust workforce studies, including examinations of whether and how FCC providers' workplace appraisals of and feelings while at work are associated with indicators of interaction quality (relationships with families, relationships with children, and responsiveness to children's negative emotions) and the quality of their interactions with children and families. Objective: The present study examines how groups of FCC providers, categorized based on differences in appraisals of and feelings experienced at work, differ in the quality of interactions with children and families. The study seeks to extend the FCC literature by also describing socio-ecological factors, such as provider and program characteristics, of these different groups of providers. Method: Survey data was collected through a national study of FCC providers (N = 888). A person-centered analysis using hierarchical clustering was used to classify providers into groups based on their workplace appraisals and feelings experienced at work. Results: A person-centered cluster analysis identified four groups. Indicators of interaction quality varied between groups. Group membership was associated with FCC providers' professional commitment, job satisfaction, and emotional exhaustion. Conclusions: Findings from the current study support calls to increase investment in the support of the FCC workforce by addressing FCC providers' needs through recognition of differences in workplace appraisals and provider feelings at work. In particular, reducing FCC providers' emotional exhaustion may be an effective way to increase the quality of their interactions with children and families.

Emotion-focused teaching practices and preschool children's social and learning behaviors.

Preschool classrooms are rich with emotions, from a teacher's enthusiastic praise for a child's work to a child's anger at another child who is using wanted materials. A wide variety of teaching behaviors may help children learn about their own and others' emotional states as well as regulation strategies to manage their emotions. In the present study, we relate teachers' emotion-focused teaching behaviors (including how teachers model emotions, instruct about emotions, and respond to children's emotions) using a new observational tool, the EMOtion TEaching Rating Scale (EMOTERS). In addition, social and learning behaviors with teachers, peers, and tasks were observed for 77 children in 18 classrooms. We used the EMOTERS to predict children's social and learning behaviors within time (fall, spring) and over time (from fall to spring). Results affirm that emotion-focused teaching practices (modeling, responding, instructing) vary across classrooms. We also found instances of these practices being related-within time and over time-to children's social interactions with teachers and peers, and engagement in tasks. Most significant associations were found with emotion instructing, despite its relatively infrequent use in classrooms. Findings offer valuable initial evidence about EMOTERS as a tool for measuring emotion-focused teaching behaviors and potentially as a tool for supporting professional development. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Patching the Pathway and Widening the Pipeline: Models for Developing a Diverse Early Childhood Workforce in Chicago.

With the growing appreciation of the importance of early learning experiences for children's healthy development, attention to the cultivation and maintenance of a qualified workforce has steadily increased. Such a workforce must have not just the knowledge and skills related to child development and early learning, but also be linguistically and culturally prepared to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse child and family population. To ensure a highly qualified workforce, programs and policymakers must attend to both the "pipeline" through which new early childhood educators (ECEs) enter the workforce and the "pathways" by which ECEs work toward and obtain the necessary education and credentials for different roles within the field. In line with the aims of this special issue, this paper leverages the first-person account style to describe barriers to and creative solutions for the development of practitioners in low-resourced communities in Chicago, with the goal of informing practice and policy. We describe three prior and ongoing partnership programs between community-based organizations and institutions of higher education, each tailored to support a unique population in the ECE pipeline on the pathway for increased educational attainment and credentialing. Each program is grounded in a specific community of Chicago, a diverse city with a sizable population of children raised in non-English speaking homes. Each program addresses specific needs of the communities they serve, especially around the recruitment, retention, and promotion of bilingual ECEs. Program administrators and community members describe each programs' goals, development, and key components unique to their target population as well as key takeaways. We conclude with an overview of critical components that we identified across these programs in order to create pathways for change within the workforce and the communities they serve.

She's supporting them; who's supporting her? Preschool center-level social-emotional supports and teacher well-being.

Preschool teachers across the country have been charged to prepare children socially and emotionally for kindergarten. Teachers working in preschool centers are supporting children's social and emotional learning (SEL) within a rich ecology of emotion and social relationships and the present study considers how the supports implemented for children's SEL at the center-level are associated with teachers' psychological health and workplace experiences. Hierarchical linear models were constructed using data from the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey 2009 cohort. Results indicate that although teachers work in individual classrooms, they share common perceptions at the center-level of their workplace climate, access to support, and, although to a lesser extent, experience commonalities in psychological health and job satisfaction. Furthermore, in centers that had implemented more supports for children's SEL (including access to mental health consultants, classroom curriculum, and training and resources for teachers) teachers were less depressed, more satisfied with their jobs, felt more supported in managing challenging behavior, and viewed the workplace climate of their center as more positive. Findings are discussed in light of the national efforts to increase and retain a high-quality early childhood workforce.

"How Would You Feel? What Would You Do?" Development and Underpinnings of Preschoolers' Social Information Processing.

Young children's social information processing (SIP) encompasses a series of steps by which they make sense of encounters with other persons; both cognitive and emotional aspects of SIP often predict adjustment in school settings. More attention is needed, however, to the development of preschoolers' SIP and its potential foundations. To this end, a new preschool SIP measure, the Challenging Situations Task (CST), was utilized; preschoolers' (n = 316) self-reported emotional and behavioral responses to hypothetical peer provocation situations on the CST were assessed longitudinally, along with aspects of their self-regulation and emotion knowledge. Age and developmental differences in CST responses were examined. Next, contributions of executive control and emotion knowledge to CST responses were analyzed. Age differences in emotion and behavior choices showed that younger preschoolers were more prone to choose happy responses, whereas older preschoolers chose more adaptive behavior responses. Both self-regulation and emotion knowledge were associated with emotion and behavior responses concurrently and across time. Implications of these findings and suggestions for further research are discussed.

Observing preschoolers' social-emotional behavior: structure, foundations, and prediction of early school success.

Social-emotional behavior of 352 3- and 4-year-olds attending private child-care and Head Start programs was observed using the Minnesota Preschool Affect Checklist, Revised (MPAC-R). Goals of the investigation included (a) using MPAC-R data to extract a shortened version, MPAC-R/S, comparing structure, internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and stability of both versions; and, using the shortened measure, to examine (b) age, gender, and risk status differences in social-emotional behaviors; (c) contributions of emotion knowledge and executive function to social-emotional behaviors; and (d) contributions of social-emotional behaviors to early school adjustment and kindergarten academic success. Results show that reliability of MPAC-R/S was as good, or better, than the MPAC-R. MPAC-R/S structure, at both times of observation, included emotionally negative/aggressive, emotionally regulated/prosocial, and emotionally positive/productive behaviors; MPAC-R structure was similar but less replicable over time. Age, gender, and risk differences were found. Children's emotion knowledge contributed to later emotionally regulated/prosocial behavior. Finally, preschool emotionally negative/aggressive behaviors were associated with concurrent and kindergarten school success, and there was evidence of social-emotional behavior mediating relations between emotion knowledge or executive function, and school outcomes. The importance of portable, empirically supported observation measures of social-emotional behaviors is discussed along with possible applications, teacher utilization, and implementation barriers.

Preschoolers' emotion knowledge: self-regulatory foundations, and predictions of early school success.

Preschoolers (N=322 in preschool, 100 in kindergarten) were assessed longitudinally to examine the self-regulatory roots of emotion knowledge (labelling and situation) and the contributions of emotion knowledge to early school adjustment (i.e., including social, motivational, and behavioural indices), as well as moderation by age, gender, and risk. Age, gender, and risk differences in emotion knowledge were also examined. Emotion knowledge skills were found to be more advanced in older children and those not at economic risk, and in those with higher levels of self-regulation. Overall, the results support the role of emotion knowledge in early school adjustment and academic success even with gender, age, and risk covaried, especially for boys, older preschoolers, and those at economic risk.

Community-based co-occurring disorder (COD) intermediate and advanced treatment for offenders.

Against a backdrop of increasing concern about the adequacy of treatment for co-occurring substance use and mental disorders (typically known as "co-occurring disorders," or COD) in the criminal justice system, this article attempts to provide empirical evidence for a typology of levels of COD treatment for offenders in both prison and community settings. The paper investigates two levels of treatment programs for COD; "intermediate" programs, in which treatment programming has been designed primarily for offenders with a single disorder, and "advanced" programs, in which programming has been designed to provide integrated substance abuse treatment and mental health services. Findings from a national survey of program directors indicated that both intermediate and advanced COD treatment programs were similar in their general approach to substance abuse treatment, but differed considerably in their treatment of mental disorders, where the advanced programs employed significantly more evidence- and consensus-based practices. Results provide support for the distinction between intermediate- and advanced-level services for offenders with COD and support a typology that defines advanced programs as integrating a range of evidence- and consensus-based practices so as to modify treatment sufficiently to address both diseases.