Training Philosophy & Goals

• Highly trained infant and early childhood mental health specialists play an important role in providing services to programs that serve pregnant parents, infants, toddlers, preschoolers, and their families
• Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health (IECMH) training is crucial for advanced practitioners in mental health and related early childhood fields in order to effectively serve this population
• IECMH training and practices must be rooted in a commitment to and enactment of social justice with a focus on diversity, equity, inclusion and cultural humility (see, Diversity Informed Tenets for Work with Infants, Children and Families https://diversityinformedtenets.org/)
• IECMH training and practices includes education regarding perinatal and maternal mental health, as well as family and community contextual factors
• Effective IECMH training includes intensive clinical experience with infants and young children, extensive didactic seminars on core issues of infant mental health, and reflective supervision in groups and individually
• Trainings incorporate a family-centered and family-strengths perspective and contextualize the psychosocial factors, adversity, challenges, and disorders that impact infants, young children, and their families within systems of care and cultural context
• Trainings support fellows in becoming critical consumers of clinical and developmental research, and integrate and apply research to interventions and clinical thinking about young children and their families
• The Harris Program is committed to training a diverse workforce of perinatal, infant, and early childhood professionals to mirror the families served by the field

FELLOWSHIP PROGRAMS

Robert J. Harmon Fellowship in Advanced Clinical Infant Mental Health Training

The Irving Harris Program in Child Development and Infant Mental Health trains postdoctoral psychology fellows and advanced community professionals intending to work in infancy and early childhood systems. The year-long clinical fellowship focuses on training in clinical, research, and systems factors related to pregnancy, infancy, and early childhood. The training involves clinical work in early childhood, didactics, reflective supervision, and professional development. The didactics cover content on development, attachment theory, treatment approaches, diagnostic classifications, perinatal mental health, diversity-informed practice and cultural humility, and socio-cultural influences. The Harmon Fellowship accepts two types of fellows: University-based Fellows and Advanced Community-based Fellows.

University-based Fellows are employed by the University of Colorado School of Medicine at a postdoctoral level, with degrees in psychology (PhD, PsyD) or psychiatry (MD, DO). Fellows work in university-based clinical settings including traditional outpatient services, consultation in pediatric primary care and other medical clinics, early care and education centers, and home-based services (some being bilingual) within UC-AMC programs and community agencies.

Advanced Community-based Fellows are sponsored by the agency where they work and are released to attend the fellowship in-person one day per week for a year. The agency pays for the fellow’s training. Advanced Community-based Fellows hold a masters or doctoral degree in mental health, occupational therapy, speech therapy, early childhood education and allied fields and have a minimum of 3 years experience working with young children and their families. This fellowship is intended for professionals who have the potential to impact service delivery, policy, or education in their agency and community.

Harris Community Fellowship

• Advanced, intensive training in infant and early childhood mental health aligned with the Colorado Association of Infant Mental Health’s Endorsement criteria   
• Reflective supervision with a licensed and endorsed professional   
• Professional development support and mentorship  
• Flexible distance learning format via Zoom, as well as in-person didactic training two times annually
• Tuition covered for agencies and individuals who serve high-risk, low-income families
• Fees for pursuing The Endorsement for Culturally Sensitive, Relationship-Focused Practice Promoting Infant Mental Health (IMH-E ®) available upon fellowship completion

For more information and how to apply, please select the Application tab!

• Weekly individual, group, and/or parent-child dyadic therapy as well as developmental and other appropriate interventions
• Complete intake, diagnostic assessments/evaluations, developmental testing
• Classroom observation
• Formulate treatment plans
• Consultation with parents and families about behavioral interventions, parent education, infant/child development
• Consultation with site staff related to behavior management approaches, postpartum depression, developmental interventions, medication evaluations, and referrals for psychiatric evaluation and/or psychological testing

Project CLIMB
Project CLIMB provides integrated behavioral health services in three primary care clinics - Child Health Clinic, Young Mother’s Clinic, and Special Care Clinic - at Children’s Hospital Colorado. The services facilitate the early identification and treatment of mental health and behavioral issues within pediatric primary care settings and to increase access to mental health services in underserved populations.

• Child Health Clinic
  • The Child Health Clinic is a pediatric residency training clinic providing more than 33,000 visits annually and serving a diverse patient population, including a significant proportion of families who speak Spanish and other languages. The behavioral health team is led by psychologists and comprised of a transdisciplinary team including psychologists, psychiatrists, pediatricians, postdoctoral fellows, psychiatry fellows, psychology interns, pediatric residents, and staff from the primary care clinics. The team provides developmental interventions, screening and early identification services, consultations, psychosocial and behavioral group and individual interventions, diagnostic assessments, medication evaluations, recommendations for treatment of infants, children and adolescents seen in a primary care setting, and staff consultation and trainings. The HealthySteps program is implemented in Child Health Clinic, providing developmental, social-emotional, and behavioral health services to babies, young children, and their families in the first three years of life. In addition to direct services, training, and education efforts, our team engages in scholarship, research, advocacy, and policy initiatives. Clinical site supervisors: Drs. Melissa Buchholz, Kelly Glaze, Jessica Kenny, & Ayelet Talmi.
• Young Moms Clinic
  • The Young Mothers Clinic (YMC) at Children’s Hospital Colorado serves adolescent mothers up to age 25 and their children. YMC provides comprehensive and multidisciplinary pediatric and well-woman care, including social work, family/health navigators, and integrated mental health services. The patient population is urban, low income, and racially diverse with high rates of trauma exposure and maternal mental health symptoms. The overarching goals of the program are to reduce repeat pregnancies among adolescent mothers and improve educational and developmental outcomes for adolescent mothers and their children. The integrated behavioral health team is staffed by social workers, a psychologist, a psychiatrist, and trainees from psychology and social work. Behavioral health services offered include staff consultation; medication evaluation and management; developmental, psychosocial and mental health assessment and interventions; and individual psychotherapy. (Clinical Site Supervisors: Drs. Bethany Ashby and Amy Ehmer)
• The Special Care Clinic
  • The Special Care Clinic at Children's Hospital Colorado is a comprehensive and integrated program that offers both primary care and consultation services to children with chronic medical conditions and special health care needs. This clinic specializes in treating children with special health care needs, including children with genetic disorders, developmental disabilities, complex chronic medical conditions and high-risk newborns. We also care for the healthy siblings of children with special needs. We offer consultation services for children who live at a distance from Denver. The Special Care Clinic also performs assessment and management strategies for community care providers. (Clinical Site Supervisor: Dr. Verenea Serrano)

PROMISE Clinic
The Perinatal Resource Offering Mood Integrated Services and Evaluation (PROMISE) Clinic is a multidisciplinary integrated behavioral health program in the Department of Ob/Gyn at UCHealth. PROMISE addresses the mental health needs of women during pregnancy and the post-partum period in the context of their obstetric care. The patient population is racially, ethnically, and socioeconomically diverse. PROMISE is staffed by an obstetrician, psychiatrists, psychologists, licensed clinical social workers, a licensed professional counselor, as well as trainees from these disciplines. PROMISE Clinic provides integrated behavioral health consultation, as well as comprehensive mental health treatment which includes psychological and psychiatric evaluations, medication management, and individual, couple, dyadic, and group therapy. Other services include staff consultation and support of maternal mood screening. (Clinical Site Supervisors: Drs. Bethany Ashby and Amy Ehmer)

The Cleft Lip and Palate Clinic
The Cleft Lip and Palate Clinic is a multidisciplinary treatment team (pediatricians, otolaryngologists, specialists, plastic surgeons, nurses, occupational therapists, social work, speech therapist pediatric dentists, orthodontist, audiologist, genetic counselors,) which specializes in treating the medical, developmental and psychosocial needs of the child with cleft lip and/or palate and their family. The clinic is held 2-3 times per month and sees families for a comprehensive yearly workup. Families usually come to clinic soon after the birth of their baby when the anomaly is discovered, and many of the patients are very young children. The Harris Fellow in this site works as a member of the multidisciplinary team consulting to families and professionals about the psychosocial issues which may arise when for a family with a baby or child with a craniofacial anomaly. Fellows do onsite consultation, evaluations, and referrals for additional services. (Clinical Site Supervisors: Dr. Karen Frankel & Ms. Jamie Idelberg)

KidStreet 
KidStreet is a multidisciplinary program that provides childcare and skilled nursing care for children ages six weeks to four years with special health care and developmental needs. The children receive nursing care, physical, occupational, and speech/language therapy throughout the day. Other services provided include music therapy, consultation with vision therapists, and participation in the prescription pet program. KidStreet serves as a practicum site for nursing, therapy, special education students and medical residents. The program staff interface with primary and specialty providers to coordinate evaluation and care for children enrolled in the program. The Harris Fellow provides consultation to the site, supporting children, families, staff, and the program as a whole with infusing early childhood mental health strategies into the care that is provided. KidStreet is located in the Children’s Hospital Colorado’s Health Pavilion. (Clinical Site Supervisor: Dr. Melissa Buchholz)

Right Start for Infant Mental Health
Right Start for Infant Mental Health is a specialized program at WellPower (formerly the Mental Health Center of Denver), the designated mental health authority for the City and County of Denver and the largest provider of community mental health services in the Rocky Mountain region. Right Start provides outpatient and home-based clinical services to families with children ages birth to five and pregnant individuals. Right Start serves a predominantly low-income, culturally diverse, underserved population experiencing a number of stressors including poverty, involvement with welfare, parental mental illness/substance abuse and other family disruptions. Right Start offers comprehensive, trauma informed, family-focused interventions, as well as case management and psychiatric services. Fellows on the Right Start team will provide relationship-based infant/early childhood mental health services to families in our outpatient clinic. Services include: comprehensive relationship assessment (with training in the Crowell Play Procedure, and the Working Model of the Child Interview), Child-Parent Psychotherapy (CPP), Parent Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT), Circle of Security- Parenting (COS-P) and other interventions as appropriate. The four licensed psychologists on the Right Start team are graduates of the Irving Harris Fellowship. (Clinical Site Supervisor: Dr. Michelle Roy)

Fussy Baby Network Colorado/Warm Connections
As a replication site for the Fussy Baby National Network out of the Erikson Institute in Chicago, The Harris Program was a partner in developing the Fussy Baby Network Colorado program. Designed to help parents struggling with infant crying, the program’s components include a Warmline, a Home Visitation program, and program infusion into the Pediatric Primary Care Clinic in conjunction with Project CLIMB at The Children’s Hospital. Fellows primary responsibilities will include fielding warmline calls, conducting home visits, and implementing the fussy baby program protocol in the primary care setting. (Clinical Site Supervisor: Dr. Karen Frankel) Fellows will be trained/certified in the FAN Model of intervention.

Warm Connections is an innovative program that combines three proven developmental/mental health approaches and offers them in a setting where no other behavioral health services are available and where thousands of low-income families are seen annually: The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC). Warm Connections staffs WIC clinics with highly qualified early child, infant and maternal health specialists to: 1) offer preventive behavioral, social-emotional and developmental support using a two-generational, community-based, urgent-concern approach; 2) conduct screening for perinatal mood symptoms and support intervention and referral for positive screens; 3) link WIC participants to resources within the early childhood system of care; and 4) educate and reflectively support WIC educators to work with participants from a trauma- and infant mental health-informed perspective. Such activities aim to improve parental and child emotional health and promote positive development among this underserved population. (Clinical Site Supervisors: Drs. Karen Frankel and Ashley Sward)