Karen Wright Ma C Psych Assoc
Karen is a licensed member of the College of Psychologists of Ontario and a member of the Ontario Association of Mental Health Professionals. She has a masters degree in psychology from York University in addition to graduate coursework through the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. In her more than 30 years in the field she has gained extensive knowledge and experience serving diverse clients with a broad range of needs through her work at Youthdale Treatment Centres, Holland-Bloorview Kids Rehab, Thames Valley District School Board, and the Toronto District School Board . Her career has predominantly been in school psychology with the TDSB in her role as Psychological Associate assessing children and adolescents and providing consultation services to parents and school personnel.
Promotes Powerful Outcomes That Have Lasting Impact
Consultation works. Results include:
- Enhancement of all relationships involved in the care setting creating a powerfully safe web of adults available to support children
- Increased recognition and an effectiveness in response to the effects of toxic stress and adversity upon adults and children bringing forth healing and resilience
- Reduced overall work-related stress for ECE staff as well as turnover, burnout, compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma by offering emotional support to the teaching staff to address the impact of the work on them
- Strengthened staff confidence and competence in dealing with troubling or difficult behaviors of young children in their care
- Reduction in rate of expulsion of children and families from programs due to home/school conflict and challenging behaviors of children
- Improvement in classroom climate resulting in more positive interactions between teachers and children and well as between teachers and families, as well as fewer negative exchanges
The accumulation of these benefits results in the improved overall quality of early care and education settings. The most significant impact of early childhood mental health consultation is the deeper and stronger capacities cultivated in each staff person will touch not only the lives in their current care but also all the children and families they will touch in the teaching career here at Kidango and beyond.
Our Associate: Dr Earnest Light C Psych
Dr. Earnest Light is a licensed psychologist in the province of Ontario. Dr. Light worked as a Clinical Psychologist in several mental health facilities. He was a Clinical Director of a crisis unit for adolescents where he worked with victims of sexual abuse. Dr. Light has worked as a Psychologist in mental health institutions in Canada since 1997. He has conducted his private practice since 2001. His research and practical skills are recognized internationally. Dr. Light was a Visiting Scholar at the University of California, San Francisco and the State University of New York in Geneseo. Dr. Light’s main interests lie in implementing therapeutic techniques of various modalities to a wide spectrum of life experience. He works with symptoms of anxiety, depression as well as posttraumatic stress, bereavement, feelings associated with life-limiting illnesses, family and sexual difficulties, and problems associated with adolescent development. Dr. Light works with adults, couples, families, and adolescents. His office is located in Thornhill, Ontario.
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Jeremiah Silliman Ma C Psych Assoc
Jeremiah is a licensed member of the College of Psychologists of Ontario. Jerry has over 30 years of experience practicing psychology. He worked for the Toronto District School Board, York Region Catholic District School Board, and some Jewish schools. Jerry has accumulated a vast amount of experience assessing children with Learning Disabilities, ADHD, Autism, Intellectual Deficits and Behaviour Disorders. He is also experienced in behaviour intervention and has consulted to programmes and families with social/emotional and behavioural needs. At our centre, he supervises psycho-educational and ADHD assessments.
Mental Health Consultation Training: Infant And Early Childhood Mental Health Consultants Way Of Being
Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Consultants Way of Being
The Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health ConsultantsWay of Being training offers an individual instruction in providingconsultation to early childhood professionals in home visiting, center-based,family child care homes, and school-based early childhood programs. This training describes the set of competenciesrequired by I/ECMH Consultants that are based on Georgetown Universitys Centerof Excellence for Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation. Participants will also explore the Consultative Stance adopted for use byI/ECMH Consultants using the Illinois Model for Consultation.
Contact Hours: Gateways Content Area: CDA Hours:
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Our Associate: Victoria Prooday And Associates
We highly recommend Victoria Prooday and Associates as our preferred provider forOccupational Therapy services Victoria is a Registered Occupational Therapist with an extensive experience working with children with behavioral, attentional, social, emotional and academic challenges. Victoria holds a Master of Science in Occupational Therapy from the Medical School at University of Toronto and a Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology and Health Science from York University. Her working experience includes positions with Toronto School Board and Toronto Rehabilitation Institute.
Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation
Infant Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation is prevention-based service that pairs a mental health consultant with families and adults who work with infants and young children in the different settings where they learn and grow, such as child care, preschool, and their home. The aim is to build adults capacity to strengthen and support the healthy social and emotional development of childrenearly and before intervention is needed.
Both IECMHC and the Pyramid Model have a strong focus on the critical importance of positive relationships in the early years of a childs development. Both approaches focus on building the capacity of professionals and families to support young childrens social emotional development. An IECMH consultant can support Pyramid Model implementation through consultation to the program leadership team, consultation to practitioners, and guiding the provision of supports and services to children and their families. The IEMHC might bring additional expertise to the Pyramid Model framework such as: considering trauma-informed care curricula and/or strategies to enhance childrens positive relationship or attachment to caregivers supporting staff and/or families experiencing depression and/or adversity, working with families with substance use problems, etc.
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Infant And Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation And Your Program
Infant and early childhood mental health consultation is an intervention that teams a mental health professional with early care and education staff and families. This team works on ways to help promote the social and emotional development of the young children in their care. Explore these resources to learn how to support programs as they select consultants and enhance their IECMHC services.
Early Childhood Mental Health Support
The Collaborations Early Childhood Mental Health Consultant works with our communitys providers and early childhood teachers to support them in identifying social emotional and mental health concerns so that all our children have a stable and sound mental foundation for healthy growth and development.
Early childhood mental health impacts social-emotional learning, classroom learning, equity and opportunity for children. Damiens story illustrates the connections between these concepts. Damien is a four-year-old participating in a local preschool program. On a recent morning, Damien was reprimanded by three different early child care providers and put into time-out twice. There is certainly a history of challenging behavior with this African-American boy. However, through these negative messages, Damien is quickly learning that he is a problem and that adults are not his allies. He will likely enter elementary school with these core beliefs and will continue to act out. But what if his care providers received coaching to help them understand social-emotional development and identify underlying factors that may be contributing to his behavior? What if they were equipped with tools to redirect him and encourage positive behavior?
The Early Childhood Mental Health Consultant seeks to accomplish those goals, so that all children have the opportunity to receive the supports they need, believe in their worth, and thrive.
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What Is Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation
Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation is a prevention-based approach that pairs a mental health consultant with adults who work with infants and young children in the different settings where they learn and grow, such as child care, preschool, home visiting, early intervention and their home.
Mental health consultation is not about fixing kids. Nor is it therapy. Mental health consultation equips caregivers to facilitate childrens healthy social and emotional development.
ECMHC has been shown to:
- Improve childrens social skills and emotional functioning
- Promote healthy relationships
- Reduce the number of suspensions and expulsions
- Improve classroom quality
- Reduce provider stress, burnout, and turnover
Mental Health Consultation Training: What Is I/ecmhc
What isInfant/Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation?
This training willdefine Infant/Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation , and explorevarious aspects of the history, components, and effects. This module will explain how I/ECMHC operatesthrough a systems perspective, providing a range of services and strategies to create,strengthen, and maintain a supportive environment that enhances the social and emotionaldevelopment of all infants and young children. I/ECMHC works within and acrossall child-serving settings
Contact Hours: 2 Hours Gateways Content Area: PPD CDA Hours: 6
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Center For Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation
The Center offers a wide range of materials that can help Head Start staff support families with practical guidance on effective ways to implement IECMHC. There are also resources to help promote young childrens social and emotional development and reduce challenging behaviors.
This online peer learning community supports Head Start leaders and related personnel . Join the group and share resources, network, and find support to enhance mental health consultation services.
Early Childhood Mental Health Consultant
Caregiver Connections offers support from caring professionals with early childhood and mental health expertise. We understand the stress and worry you face when the children you care for are challenged by behavioral, social/emotional, physical or learning programsand know that you want to provide the best care to every child in your program. Thats why Caregiver Connections offers a wide range of services and supports at no cost to those caring for and educating children, including:
- Strengthening skills to support a childs healthy social emotional development
- Offering support in the development of partnerships between providers and parents
- Helping with problem-solving and working with parents on difficult issues
- Providing timely, helpful training
- Referring families to other services when needed
- Biting, hitting or head banging
- Talking to parents about tough issues
Concerns for family problems including:
- Violence in the home or community
- Divorce/blended families
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How We Support Children
Our Early Childhood Mental Health consultants provide social and emotional support to children ages 0-6, families and caregivers in early childhood care settings. We partner with childcare teachers to provide a positive, emotionally healthy classroom environment where children can be successful. Our comprehensive approach to support a constructive, trauma-informed environment for educators will directly influence the long-term transformation of students.
We also assist families in learning about early childhood development and how to promote healthy social and emotional skills at home. St. Vincent Family Services offers families a comprehensive, full-service range of youth behavioral health services, depending on the childs age, including telehealth, 24/7 residential care, individual and family counseling, and in-home and in-school care all guided by our behavioral health professionals.
We Provide:
To access early childhood resources, such as book readings, wellness tips and fun activities, check out this playlist on our YouTube channel.
I have observed positive changes with our childrens emotional and social development in school as a result of participating in SVFS dinosaur school program. St. Vincent Family Services provides support to our parents, staff and to me as an administrator. SVFS has added a great value to our program and to the services we provide to the children and families in the community.
Early Learning Center Partner
Empowering Human Potential Of Adults And Children
Within every human being lies potential ready to be expressed. One way we create environments that support teachers and the young children and families they serve is to realize their unique potential is through early childhood mental health consultation . Recognizing the adults in the childs daily life are their most powerful influence, we place specially trained mental health consultants at our centers to support the teaching teams and families. The consultants work with these adults to create and sustain environments, interactions and experiences that promote positive mental health, buffer the effects of toxic stress and trauma, and bring out the most optimal development and learning of each unique child in their care.
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Mental Health Consultation Training: A Systems Framework
A Systems Framework: Understanding the Process of I/ECMH Consultation
This module addresses the systems that I/ECMHC interfaces with.Participants will learn about systems perspectives generally and begin to understandthe settings that I/ECMH consultants work within, both formal and informal. Themodule explores how learning and change take place and supports consultantstoward understanding their role and their relationships as change agents towardbetter child and family outcomes within a systems context.
Contact Hours: 2 Hours Gateways Content Area: PPD CDA Hours: 6
Minimum Qualifications And Skills Required:
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What Families Can Do
The most positive influence on early childhood mental health is for a child to know that at least one person really cares and is available for them. In a family setting, thats when a child knows that their parent genuinely likes being with them and also that the parent will stay emotionally connected to them even when the child is upset, angry or otherwise not at their best.
The most important thing a parent can do for their child is to love them unconditionally and provide a safe and emotionally secure environment for them to grow and thrive, Eckley said. Children need their parents to set healthy limits and at the same time give them space to make mistakes and learn.
All children act out at times and display troublesome behaviors. However, if difficult behaviors seem extreme, occur frequently and last for more than a couple of weeks, it might be helpful to seek assistance from a professional.
Some red flags to pay attention to are when a child is having challenging behaviors that are long in duration, frequent, and your parenting knowledge and skills are not resolving the issue, Eckley added. Then, it might be good to call the Birth to Five Helpline at 877-705-KIDS . Helpline specialists are child development specialists who can talk with you about your observations and concerns.
Family Connections: A Mental Health Consultation Model
Explore Family Connections, a preventive, systemwide mental health consultation and training approach to strengthen the capacity of Head Start and Early Head Start staff. These resources and training modules can be used by staff to engage and support families dealing with parental depression and related adversities and with children in classrooms and in the home.
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Early Childhood Mental Health Faqs
To renew your EMCH credential, one must have attended minimum of 15 hours of training and/or coursework focused on early childhood in two or more of the ECMH Core Competency Domains within the renewal period. ECMH Core Competencies Domains are Social-Emotional Growth & Development, Family & Community Relations, Assessment, Interventions, and Cultural and Linguistic Competency. To renew, you will also need an updated ECMH Skills Inventory.
Trainings and the updated ECMH Skills Inventory must be verified in the Professional Development section of your profile.
Send an email to with your name and OPIN notifying your intent to renew. Your profile will then be reviewed for renewal requirements.
Facilitating A Referral For Mental Health Services For Children And Their Families Within Early Head Start And Head Start
One of the many responsibilities of Head Start program staff is to make referrals for outside services in partnership with families. Facilitating a referral for mental health services involves helping families understand the value of engaging in these services and matching them with the best available provider to ensure a good fit. This tip sheet can help program staff facilitate an effective referral.
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Mental Health Consultation Training: Diversity Equity Inclusion And Belonging Considerations
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging Considerations
This module is an extension of the Diversity, Equity,and Inclusion module of the Infant/Early Childhood Mental Health Consultantorientation and to further explore Competency 3 of the IL Model of I/ECMHC, an Abilityto Work Effectively Throughout Diverse Cultures and Communities. This modulewill investigate what diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging meanfor the I/ECMHC and how to put these considerations into practice. This moduleplaces a heavy emphasis on self-reflection and journaling.
Contact Hours: 3 Hours Gateways Content Area: PPD CDA Hours: 6
Camilla Moreira Mpsy Rp
Camilla Moreira is a Registered Psychotherapist and a member of the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario , Ontario Association of Consultants, Counsellors, Psychometrists and Psychotherapists , and Canadian Association for Child and Play Therapy. Ms. Moreira obtained her Master’s degree from the Adler Graduate Professional School and she is currently pursuing a Doctorate degree in Clinical Psychology. Camilla has experience in multiple therapeutic modalities incl. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Play Therapy. She conducted psycho-educational assessments at the Peel Region School Board and provided psychological therapy for children, youth, and adults with depression, anxiety , grief and loss, attachment issues, social skills problems, etc. At our centre, Camilla provides child therapy, gifted and ADHD assessments.
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