Lincoln Child Center provides Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation to Child Development Centers through a partnership with the Oakland Fund for Children and Youth and Oakland Unified School District.. These centers are attached to elementary and high schools where our school-based mental health programs are located, enabling Lincoln to create support hubs in under-resourced communities. By working with pre-school age children and their families we are also able to engage in early intervention and prevention services while providing a continuity of care for children throughout their educational experience.

Recent research demonstrates the importance of the first five years of life and the role that healthy relationships play in successful early development. Early identification of mental health and behavior issues and intervention can have a significant impact on the outcomes for young children. In fact, interventions with preschoolers can decrease behavior problems in later childhood and adolescence. While child care staff are trying to provide the best care they can with limited resources, children come to preschool with greater needs and challenges. Children carry the pressures associated with neighborhood and domestic violence, child abuse and neglect, and family mental illness and substance abuse. These are the children that need an enriching preschool the most, yet are most likely to have ongoing learning and behavioral problems and be expelled from child care.

The ECMHC model consists of mental health professionals partnering with early care and education (ECE) professionals to promote the social and emotional well being of young children. Mental Health Consultation ensures stability and a strong foundation for school readiness. Services build upon the strengths of staff and families to maximize children’s emotional and social development. A driving tenet is that children’s behavior has meaning. Working together to gain a better understanding of the child’s behavior, the consultant and ECE professionals are able to respond in ways that support positive change. That way the child can take full advantage of the learning environment. Through the ECE staff’s understanding, response and support to these behaviors, change can occur.

Mental Health Consultation includes a variety of services within the classroom setting:

• General Consultation: Ongoing dialogue with teachers and directors about various topics such as typical and atypical child development, social-emotional development, curriculum, environment set-up, inclusion of children with special needs as well as offering general support and general observations in the classroom.
• Child Specific Consultation: Assessment of the child, consultation to teachers, directors, and families regarding a specific child. The development of an intervention plan to address an individual child’s social, emotional, and/or developmental needs.
• Program Consultation: Includes work with all levels of the early care and education program staff regarding systemic issues that may impact a child’s functioning in the early care and education setting as well as support the staff in providing quality care for the children.
• Referral: Consultants can make appropriate referrals for other support services and assist the families in accessing community supports.
• ECMHC is funded by the Oakland Fund for Children and Youth and donations to Lincoln Child Center. The services are free for participating child development centers, students, and families.