Session: Healthy from the Very Beginning: Integrating Behavioral Health and Wellness within Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Programs to Ensure Healthy Youth Development (Society for Social Work and Research 21st Annual Conference - Ensure Healthy Development for all Youth)

Background:  Throughout the history of the social work practice, attention has focused on providing support, safety nets, and sometimes clinical care to families with young children.  In contemporary social work practice, we are seeing a renewed emphasis on care for the youngest members of society, delivered within the context of family and community.  Increasingly providers of services to pregnant women and parents of young children are realizing that such families have complex service needs and that there is a need to offer a set of coordinated services focused on maternal and infant health, mental health, substance abuse, and parenting support. 

Objectives:  In this symposium, researchers in the maternal and infant mental health SIG will present data from three programs of research evaluating integrative intervention approaches for working with pregnant women or families with infants and young children.  The models presented are firmly grounded in social work practice theory, and offer empirical knowledge with potential for replication within the system of care serving children, youth and families.

Methods:  The presenters will provide overviews of the goals and programmatic structure of three novel integrative service programs.  Presenters will provide rigorous empirical data on the implementation process, successes, and challenges associated with each of the program models. 

Results:  In the first paper, behavioral health risk screening and brief treatment are seamlessly integrated into statewide maternal, infant, and early childhood home visiting programs at point of first contact, promoting psychoeducation and integrated care for women at risk for depression, substance use disorder, interpersonal violence and smoking.  In the second paper, a dyadic evidence-informed attachment-focused parenting intervention is offered to mothers and young children as an enhancement to methadone treatment. Feasibility of this process is explored through qualitative interviews with clients and clinic staff.  In the third paper, paraprofessional doulas offer relationship-based pregnancy and postpartum health education and parenting support to teenage mothers in hospital and in home settings.  Data will address the different perspectives clients and home visitors have on the nature of their relationships.  

Conclusion:  At the conclusion of this symposium, a national leader in implementation science who specializes in early childhood programs will distill key themes from the presentations related to implementation, training, measurement, and translation.  The discussant will then encourage audience members to be active participants in a conversation regarding implications of the papers for integrative early childhood approaches in order to promote and ensure the healthy development of youth.   In keeping with the conference theme, the papers within this symposium offer a holistic and community-based perspective on what it means to ensure healthy youth development from the very beginning of life.