Irving Harris Program in Child Development and Infant Mental Health
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The Irving Harris Program in Child Development and Infant Mental Health provides clinical training, consultation, advocacy, and research in infant and early childhood mental health. Postdoctoral and community fellowships are offered to qualified professionals seeking advanced training in infant and early childhood mental health.
Program Beginnings
Over 30 years ago, the concept of infant mental health training in Colorado flourished from a friendship developed through a fortunate alphabetical seating arrangement. During a Zero to Three board members' meeting, Robert J. Harmon happened to sit next to Irving Harris, retired executive and founder of the Irving Harris Foundation. The more Bob learned about Irving, the more he was impressed with his passion for and awareness of young children and their developmental needs. Years later, Irving asked Bob about creating an infant mental health program in Colorado. This conversation led to the establishment of the Irving Harris Program in Child Development and Infant Mental Health at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. Since its founding in 1996, the program has expanded tremendously. We created a several intensive training programs, as well as research, clinical service, and advocacy programs in infant and early childhood mental health that serve Colorado and beyond. Program faculty provide consultation, supervision, and training to academic programs and community agencies in Colorado as well as across the nation. Additionally, Harris Faculty have developed and/or disseminated numerous early childhood mental health clinical programs including Project CLIMB, Healthy Expectations, Warm Connections, and HealthySteps.
Program Founder
The Harris Program began in 1996 under the directorship of Robert J. Harmon, MD (in memoriam, 1946-2006), an infant and child psychiatrist and Professor in the Department of Psychiatry, with the funding from The Irving Harris Foundation.( https://www.irvingharrisfdn.org/)
Dr. Harmon was a graduate of the University of Colorado School of Medicine (UCSOM) where he also received his post-graduate training in General and Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. After spending three years at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in Bethesda, MD, Dr. Harmon returned to Colorado, joining the faculty of the School of Medicine in 1978 as an Assistant Professor and later becoming Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics in 1992.
Below are some of his many appointments/recognitions during his accomplished career:
- Certified in General, Child and Adolescent, and Addiction Psychiatry
- Medical Director of the Center for Dependency, Addiction and Rehabilitation (CeDAR) at the University of Colorado Hospital/University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus
- Psychiatric Director of the Women’s and Children’s Residential Services at The Haven, a substance abuse treatment therapeutic community
- Board member of Zero to Three/National Center for Infants, Toddlers, and Families
- Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association (APA)
- Deputy Editor of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
- The Kempe Children’s Foundation Professional Honoree for contributions to the prevention and treatment of child abuse and neglect in April 2003
- Author of more than 150 publications on infant psychiatry, infant and family development, and the effects of the death of an infant on the family
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 Expansion Community Fellowship
The Harris Expansion Community Fellowship offers scholarship-supported access to advanced training in perinatal, infant and early childhood mental health, regardless of location within Colorado. The Community Fellowships are generously funded by Caring for Colorado, the Community First Foundation, the State of Colorado (CIRCLE grant), the Temple Hoyne Buell Foundation and the Zoma Foundation. Using remote learning technology, fellows participate each Thursday in a yearlong training program, while continuing to serve young children and families in their community. Our goal is to support professionals across the state as they develop expertise in infant and early childhood mental health, provide high-quality clinical services, advocate on behalf of young children and families, and enhance the early childhood continuum of care.
The fellowship offers:
- 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
Please click here for more information.
The seminars cover a variety of topics, including normal infant and early childhood development, temperament, normal pregnancy and pregnancy loss, high-risk infants and parents, developmental psychopathology (including attachment disorders, failure to thrive, and behavior problems), the impact of child abuse and neglect, developmentally appropriate assessment, diagnosis and treatment of infants and toddlers, the treatment of infant-parent psychopathology, and mental health consultation in early childhood settings.
Robert J. Harmon Fellowship in Advanced Clinical Infant Mental Health
Survey of Infant and Early Childhood Assessment | A
4-week training that provides a background on developmental assessment,
how to approach the consultative process, and training on the Mullen
Scales of Early Development with ongoing supervision |
Clinical Case Conference | Weekly supervision attended by Harris
fellows to share clinical experiences from their primary training sites
as well as to present and discuss difficult cases with faculty supervision |
Perinatal Seminar | Focuses on bonding, attachment, high-risk perinatal status, developmental care, pregnancy loss, and consultation to the NICU |
| Core Reading Seminar | Provides an overview of child development, diagnosis and disorders, and clinical treatment issues in the first 5 years of life |
Mental Health Consultation and Supervision in Early Childhood Seminar | Provides an introduction to
the concepts of mental health consultation for early childhood settings
(i.e., childcare, primary care, developmental early intervention
programs and early childhood education settings). Includes training and
readings on reflective supervision |
Survey of Dyadic Assessment and Treatment Tools | Provides information on different assessment and intervention techniques to use with parents of young children |
Diversity-Informed Practice in Infant Mental Health | Topics include religious diversity, LGBT families, poverty, discrimination, babies with special health care needs, fatherhood, substance abuse, developmental disabilities, and transculturalissues with attachment, childbirth, feeding, sleeping, and crying |
Diagnostic Case Review | Discussion of clinical cases from trainees’ clinical sites, focusing on diagnostic and treatment issues and using the Diagnostic Classification system (DC: 0-5) to develop diagnostic formulations |
Infant Mental Health Topics | Provides
more in-depth information on certain infant mental health topics that
were briefly covered in the other seminars and exposes fellows to local
resources that offer specialized services to parents and young children |
Training Committee | Monthly
meetings between Harris Program directors and fellows to discuss
various issues related to the training program and the fellows' experiences |
Harris Expansion Community Fellowship
Core Reading Seminar | Provides an overview of child development, diagnosis and disorders, and clinical treatment issues in the first 5 years of life |
DC: 0-5 | Provides in-depth theoretical and practical experience with the DC:0-5 Diagnostic System using the fellow’s current cases |
Development in Early Childhood | Focuses
on core developmental domains--language, social and emotional, motor,
and cognitive--and connecting these to the growing field of “affective
neuroscience” –the science of emotions and the brain and how the
earliest interactions shape lasting patterns of relatedness |
Diversity- Informed Practice in Infant Mental Health | Explores The Diversity-informed Tenets for Work with Infants, Children and Families using discussion, reflection and case application |
Leadership Series | Two-part
series on varied professional development topics that includes
discussion of leadership within infant mental health, guest
presentations from local leaders, and independent study to pursue COAIMH IMH-E ® |
Mental Health Consultation | Provides an introduction to
the concepts of mental health consultation in early childhood settings
(i.e., childcare, primary care, developmental early intervention
programs and early childhood education settings) |
Perinatal Seminar | Focuses on bonding, attachment, high-risk perinatal status, developmental care, pregnancy loss, and consultation to the NICU |
Program Meeting | Monthly
meetings between Harris Program directors and fellows to discuss issues
related to the training program and the fellows' experiences |
Reflective Supervision | Combines didactic instruction with direct practice of reflective supervision skills |
Relational Assessment and Treatment Tools | Introduction and overview of dyadic assessment tools (i.e. WMCI, Crowell, MIM) and practice with administration, interpretation and feedback |
Screening and Assessment | Covers commonly used screening and assessment measures for use in a range of settings including primary care, outpatient clinics, developmental early intervention programs and early childhood education |
Trauma Treatment | Overview
on working with children who have experienced traumatic stress
including attention to secondary traumatic stress, special conditions and an in-depth introduction to evidence-based models of treatment |
Topics in Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health | Local
infant and early childhood professionals present to the fellows on
community resources, systems and topics not covered in other courses |
Haley Osborn, MA
HARRIS Program Coordinator
1890 N Revere Ct,
Aurora, CO 80045
Phone: 303-724-9758
Email:harrisprogram@ucdenver.edu