Expanding early childhood mental health consultation to new venues: Serving infants and young children in domestic violence and homeless shelters

Abstract

The number of infants and young children affected by homelessness and domestic violence is growing, and the effect of these experiences on children is wide-ranging. Early childhood mental health consultation (ECMHC) has expanded to these settings to help the adults attend to very young children whose needs are often obscured by families' crises. Recent research in ECMHC to childcare has cited the salience of the consultant-consultee relationship as the central contributor to positive change in caregiver's behavior and children's experience. This article explores the similarities and variations in the consultant's way of being that are necessary to expand this relationship-based ECMHC model to adult-focused settings. This has incorporated a combination of consultative shifts: expanded training, appreciation for families' survival priorities, attention to the effects of unavoidable adult decisions on children, increased tolerance for the affect this raises in parents and caseworkers, and greater efforts to create space for reflection and thinking. Caseworkers' attenuated contact with and limited prior knowledge about young children creates challenges in identifying and responding to concerns about children. The particular systemic and relational difficulties that emerge in shelters and that influence caseworkers' responsiveness to clients are explored.