"It was Just Good to Have an Outlet for Other Parents to Talk to": Feasibility and Acceptability of Integrating Mental Health and Wellness Services into Predominantly Black Early Childhood Education Centers During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Racial disparities in mental health care access and quality are associated with higher levels of unmet need for Black parents and families, a population disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Integrating services within early childhood education centers may increase mental health care access for Black families with young children. The current study examined the feasibility, acceptability, and perceived impact of an integrated program offering mental health care for parents, children, and dyads during the pandemic. Black parents (N = 61) completed measures of program satisfaction and perceived benefits of participation, and 47 parents also participated in focus groups further assessing perceptions of the program. Results demonstrated high levels of satisfaction and perceived benefit of the program for parents and children. Themes generated through analysis included: social support, creating a safe space, prioritizing self-care, and sharing parenting strategies. Parents' feedback provides preliminary feasibility and acceptability for the integrated mental health program.

Leveraging the Expertise of the Community: A Case for Expansion of a Peer Workforce in Child, Adolescent, and Family Mental Health.

The rise in child and adolescent mental health concerns has led to the need for an expanded workforce to meet the needs of our nation's families. Peer paraprofessionals (PPs) have proven to be impactful in the areas of adult mental health (MH) and substance use disorders, and for persons with chronic medical conditions. PPs can contribute to addressing child, adolescent, and family MH needs by being deployed in community settings and providing both emotional and tangible support to families and children. Additional use of PPs can address equity gaps in MH services by improving access to support and enhancing the cultural acceptability of MH interventions. A concentrated effort to expand and develop this workforce may help to alleviate the strain on the current MH system. The Georgetown University Infant and Early Childhood Certificate program is a paraprofessional training program that prepares community members to meet the MH needs of families with young children. The authors will describe the results of a qualitative study examining the landscape of peer paraprofessional services in DC that was conducted to support the expansion of the peer workforce to include individuals with expertise in infant and early childhood mental health.

Social support as a resilience factor for parent-infant dyads experiencing homelessness.

Despite the considerable prevalence of homelessness among very young children in the United States, there is a notable lack of research on risk, resilience, and developmental well-being of infants who experience family homelessness. In the present study, we considered social support as a resilience factor for quality of parent-infant relationships and parent depression among a sample of 106 parents and their infants (ages birth to 12 months) residing in emergency shelters for families experiencing homelessness. We assessed social support, parent histories of adverse experiences during childhood and adulthood, and parent current depression symptoms via structured interview measures, and we assessed quality of the parent-infant relationship with an observational approach. Results showed different patterns for the roles of adversity the parents had experienced during childhood compared to adversity experienced more recently, as adults. Childhood adversity predicted parent-infant responsiveness, with a positive association that was moderated by level of perceived social support. Parents with more childhood adversity showed more responsiveness with their infants only when they had access to high levels of social support. Adulthood adversity predicted higher scores for parent depression, while social support predicted lower parent depression scores. This work contributes to the very limited literature on the functioning of families with infants in shelters. Our discussion includes implications for research, policy, and prevention and intervention efforts. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Adaptive systems for student resilience in the context of COVID-19.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is a disaster, defined as an event that suspends normal activities and threatens or causes severe, community-wide damage (Masten & Motti-Stefanidi, 2020). While all school children and their families have been impacted by COVID-19 to some degree, the burdens are disproportionately being borne by children experiencing poverty and children from minority racial and ethnic groups. In this article, we consider resilience and risk in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic by focusing on children's developing adaptive systems. When adaptive systems are functioning well, most children will demonstrate resilience to disaster. The capacity of children's adaptive systems to function well depends upon their developmental histories and the social and community resources available to them. We discuss how these factors contribute to children's adaptation and close with recommendations for communities looking to support resilience to the varied adversities of COVID-19. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).