CCDE and the Department of Psychology present
Infant-Parent Mental Health Post-Graduate Certificate Program
- 2010-2011 Boston Program
- Applications accepted until September 1. Click here for more information.
The Infant-Parent Mental Health Post-Graduate Certificate Program (IPMHPCP) is based on the award-winning Napa Infant-Parent Mental Health Fellowship Program developed by Dr. Ed Tronick, Chief of the Child Development Unit at Children’s Hospital Boston and University Distinguished Professor at the University of Massachusetts Boston and Dr. Kristie Brandt, Director of the Parent-Infant & Child Institute in Napa, California and Director of the Napa Infant-Parent Mental Health Fellowship Program. Together with Program Director, Dr. Dorothy Richardson, Director of the Infant-Parent Mental Health Program at the Boston Institute for Psychotherapy and Associate Director, and Infant Mental Health clinician, Marilyn Davillier, LICSW, and core faculty member, Alexandra Harrison, M.D., the present program is designed to address the increasing need for skilled, interested and appropriately trained professionals to provide infant-parent mental health services for families with children ages birth to five years. This training program is being sponsored by the University of Massachusetts, Boston.
The IPMHPCP is a 10-month intensive interdisciplinary learning experience designed for licensed and/or credentialed professionals working with children birth to five and their families. The goal of the IPMHPCP is train professionals to understand relationship-oriented therapies and to focus therapeutic efforts on the child-parent relationship. The program’s past and future graduates are among a small group of providers in the U.S. who are formally trained in this important field. Informed by current research and theoretical formulations in infant studies, infant-parent mental health is an emerging field and therapeutic methods for the treatment of relational problems are just beginning to take shape. To explore current theoretical thinking, research findings and models of care, the IPMHPCP has engaged some of the most recognized luminaries in their fields as faculty for the program. The opportunity to think with these experts and explore models of care for an extended period of time and in a small group is not only rare, but places the IPMHPCP graduates on the leading edge of this developing field.
The IPMHPCP is committed to inter-disciplinary training with a philosophical belief that young children and their families who seek treatment are best served within the context of professional relationships where referral and consultation are used to address specific issues while maintaining a comprehensive care approach. The IPMHPCP will enhance Fellows understanding of infant-parent mental health concepts and in the developing skills, relevant to their scope of practice, that support infants, children and their families in optimal social, emotional development through:
- preventive interventions and programs,
- direct interventions,
- interdisciplinary collaboration,
- research,
- consultation to providers and caregivers serving children, and,
- advancement of public policy related to infant-parent physical, social, emotional and mental health.
The theoretical framework of the program is Tronick’s Mutual Regulation Model, ideas on meaning making, his work using dynamic systems theory and the dyadic expansion of consciousness hypothesis, in addition to other relational and neurodevelopmental models of infant social and emotional development (Brazelton, Perry, Siegel, and others). Therefore, throughout the IPMHPCP, the principal focus will be the infant-to-parent relationships and factors impacting these relationships. Learning will focus on the development of the infant-parent relationships and optimizing the functionality and resilience of these relationships through preventive interventions, assessment, monitoring, support, and treatment. Fellows will gain exposure to a range of assessment tools for diagnosing social-emotional, developmental, attachment-relationship, and regulatory conditions in infants and young children, and in screening for conditions in the parent and child that require referral for specialized assessment or treatment.
The following topics are a sampling of what will be covered in this program, representing a balance of theory, assessment and intervention:
- Dyadic Infant-Parent Psychotherapy
- Regulatory Disorders of Infancy (Sleeping, Feeding, Crying)
- Therapeutic Use of Videotape
- Developmental Risk and Resilience
- Neuro-relational Models of Development
- Disorders of Relating and Communicating (Autism Spectrum Disorders)
- Effects of Trauma on Infants and Young Children
- Postpartum Depression and Infertility
- Thinking about Difference; Influence of Culture
- Sensory Processing Problems
- Family Systems Thinking and Interventions
- Neonatal Assessment
- Diagnostic Classification System for Birth to Three
The IPMHPCP is founded in the belief that just as children develop within the context of the family, providers grow and develop within the context of the provider community where learning and professional development are optimized in an environment of support, nurturance, and respect.
The IPMHPCP is a program dedicated to the task of training practitioners to effectively treat the disorders of infancy and early childhood within the milieu of relationship and family. We believe it is the most exciting of challenges, and one that will have a long-term and profound impact on infants, parents and providers everywhere.