Early Childhood Node

Optimizing early life development.

Too often, early developmental challenges are missed and later interventions are less effective.

 

Three young children playing in a preschool.

Node Leadership

Early childhood family-centered interventions require novel intervention design, delivery platforms, and dissemination, and must move from deficit-oriented to strengths-based approaches. These interventions, in turn, require strategic partnerships with child health providers: American Academy of Pediatrics, (AAP), Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visitors (MIECHV), community care coordinators and champions (Healthy Start), and public health leaders (Title V, Association of Maternal & Child Health Programs [AMCHP]). 

Focus: To create and bundle flourishing interventions in early childhood.

Projects: The Node is working to:

  1. Teach early childhood professionals about early relational health,
  2. Boost Head Start, and
  3. Trial the Family Well-Being Program, a multigenerational multi-tiered intervention piloted in the LCIRN, now funded for trial in an RCT in under-resourced early childhood educational settings using trauma-specific approaches to improve mental health. 

The Node is working on an Early Childhood Mental Health Toolkit.