Virginia Association for Infant Mental Health (VAIMH): Why Infant Mental Health Matters
Throughout the summer, Robin’s Foundation’s summer intern, Annaliese Santana, interviewed eight inspiring community leaders as part of the foundation’s “Partner Spotlight” initiative. This new initiative provides a platform for grantees to highlight their important work in early childhood development and for Robins Foundation to recognize the incredible efforts and successes of our partners.
Annaliese’s third interviewee was Dr. Anjali Ferguson, Executive Director of the Virginia Association for Infant Mental Health (VAIMH).
VAIMH is a relatively newer organization in Richmond. This organization proactively advances infant mental stability by education and supporting caregivers, educators, and our little ones. In this interview, Dr. Anjali Ferguson provided informative insights on discrepancies in the mental health field and the factors and relationships that impact early childhood development.
Can you describe at a high level what the Virginia Association for Infant Mental Health does?
The organization’s mission is to support the social emotional development of children from birth through age six across Virginia. We do so through education and by providing professional development opportunities to those who work and interact with young children. In addition to these initiatives, we advocate for policies and initiatives that better support the mental health of postpartum moms, maternal mental health, and young children.
What is infant mental health and why is it so important?
There’s a huge misconception that caregivers and educators don’t need to focus on social emotional development with infants. But, science has proven that 90% of our brain development happens by the age of five.
Understanding infant mental health means understanding that social emotional processes start early and are dependent on a child’s caregivers, environment, and potential traumatic factors. By focusing on infant mental health, caregivers can equip young kids with foundational knowledge that’ll then contribute to their development well into adulthood. So, laying a solid foundation early in life prevents maladaptive outcomes in adulthood, such as mental illness and negative physical health outcomes.
You offer training and education resources to infants, young children, and their families. One of the programs you offer is called “Endorsement.” Can you describe what that is and how it has addressed and improved infant mental health?
Endorsement is our biggest program that we offer, and it is a certification for early childhood professionals. This certification denotes a professional has received a certain level of training and is equipped to work with young children. Through Endorsement, and all of our programs, practitioners receive what’s called “reflective supervision.” Reflective supervision is a space where people can process how their personal history may impact the work they do.
Your website also talks about how you all view the child in the context of the family. Can you talk about what that means?
The idea of “family-centered” or understanding that child in the “context of the family” is recognizing that no one individual, no one child, operates in a silo. A child is impacted by the parent’s mental health, the parent’s resources or lack of resources, parental relationships, and social networks. Other indirect factors such as one’s neighborhood and cultural context can also impact a child. So, we have to be cognizant that the child sits in these systems and be very holistic in our care.
What are some of the specific challenges that you see infants, caregivers and families experience?
One of the biggest predictors of child abuse risk or child maltreatment is an overstressed parent. Oftentimes, a caregiver or parent can be overstressed due to a lack of resources. A lot of families have to work multiple jobs and may not have the same financial resources as others. That stress can impact the parent-child relationship and also impact the kind of nurturance and support a child may receive. From a systems and policy standpoint, we need to think of ways we can support caregivers so that they feel less stressed and more equipped to work with children.
Also, accessing adequate services and resources is really tough for young children. Across Virginia, we don’t have enough qualified professionals who can do things like make accurate diagnoses or provide interventions for young children. I find that people are really afraid to work with young children because development is so tricky and fluid; it takes specialized training to be able to do so.
When it comes to qualified care, have you seen that there are discrepancies between acknowledging the cultural context of the child? What has been your experience with that?
Through research, we know that Black and Latine children are more likely to be diagnosed with mental health needs much later in life. Usually, they’re diagnosed around seven or eight years old, while their white counterparts can receive diagnoses much earlier in development. This is concerning because early intervention is critical for developmental needs. So, if you catch speech and language delays early, you catch autism disorder early, ADHD, and so on, which can make a huge difference for a child’s outcomes.
Since many Black and Latine kids receive those diagnoses well into their schooling, this impacts things such as biases in the educational setting. Sometimes, their mental health needs are viewed as problem behaviors instead of developmental needs, which can make access to educational resources much more difficult.
We have limited providers in Virginia who know how to work with young children. Then, finding providers who are representative of diverse groups is even more limited and finding providers who are competent and sensitive and humble in their cultural care is even more limited than that. There is a long way to go when it comes to training the professionals and building a workforce that supports diverse and marginalized communities.
What motivates you to do this work?
I always knew I wanted to work with people. I grew up in Northern Virginia in very diverse communities and when I was eight years old, my family moved back to India for a bit. My experience there was just really different from what I had grown up with in the United States. When I was 10 and moved back to the U.S., I just kept being intrigued by different parenting practices. So, I went to graduate school for my PhD in clinical psychology. There, I studied child maltreatment and I was particularly interested in babies and young children and how we can protect our most vulnerable populations.
Now, I am a mom of two young children; I have a 4-year-old and a five month old. A lot of my work has shifted in the early childhood space to be very equity and inclusion focused and a lot of that is because of my kids and who they are – I have multiracial kids and I’m in a multiracial partnership. Being in an Executive Director role at VAIMH is rewarding. I feel like I can make a bit more change, especially for voices that aren’t otherwise heard.
Can you expand on how Robins Foundation’s support has helped you all address the needs of the community?
Robins funded our first Executive Director position, which is me, and it’s VAIMH’s first paid position. All of our service has historically been volunteer based, which really limits our productivity. Robins’ support has helped us start to build more visibility for the organization when it comes to mental health and mental health needs of these early populations.
Robins has helped us establish relationships and build collaborations with organizations like National Public Radio (NPR), Virginia Public Media (VPM), The Imagination Library RVA, Voices for VA Kids and Kids Mental Health Foundation. These organizations already do great work, but offering a mental health lens and an equity lens has been really helpful for them. At the legislative level, this position has helped us advocate for policies, programming, and support directed towards mental health. While there’s a lot of excitement about early childhood development at the state level, we want to make sure social-emotional development is part of that excitement too.
I’m grateful to Robins for providing the support we needed to start the Executive Director role and build these advocacy efforts. I feel hopeful that we can continue to work on these initiatives. It’s clear that there’s a huge need in this state, so we want to continue to be a voice for all children and families.
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For more information on the VAIMH, please visit their website: https://www.vaimh.org/
To stay up to date on their upcoming events, please use the following links
Event Calendar: https://www.vaimh.org/upcoming-events
Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/virginiaaimh/
