Accelerating Statewide Change: Advancing Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health in State and Local Systems

A series of issue briefs, funded by Perigee, outline opportunities to advance infant, early childhood, and parent mental health in Washington State. Informed by family, provider, community, and system leaders from across the state, these resources make the case for deepening the state's collective focus on supporting mental health and wellbeing during the earliest years. This brief covers the ways that infant and early childhood mental health is enacted within multiple settings, sectors, and systems designed to support young children and their families, including health care, early care and education, early intervention, child welfare, and more. The provision of mental health services does not live within one system, but involves a broad network of systems of care that provide a continuum of social-emotional supports.