Community Conversation Series
2025 SERIES TITLE:
IECMH Principles to Practice: Lifting Socio-Cultural Context & Expectations
RIAIMH's Community Conversation Series (CCS) is a 6-session annual series that is organized around a broad theme to showcase IMH-relevant research, clinical practice, and/or policy work in RI. Our goal is to offer professional development opportunities that serve to enhance knowledge of (and are aligned with) the RI Infant Mental Health Competencies and IECMH-Endorsement®.
Participants are encouraged to attend the full series to experience the arc of conversation about the topic, deepen connections with others in the RI infant/family workforce community, and broaden awareness of the range of innovative leaders in RI. But it is not required that you attend all sessions of the series.
The Community Conversation series is open EVERYONE. RIAIMH members may attend at no cost. Non-members are welcome to attend for a registration fee ($40). Graduate and Undergraduate Students are welcome to attend at no cost. (They are required to enter their College email when registering.)
Total PD: 2 hours/session; up to 12 contact hours/year (In October, CCS combines events with an additional half hour of Advocacy training)
Possible NASW credits and CELP PD hours per session. Please see session event registration for pending/offering. General CEU eligibility requirements below.
All session content Learning Outcomes are with IMH Competencies®. The IMH Competencies® are listed on the Attendance Certificate.
Series Description
RIAIMH’s CCS 2025 series will continue to examine core IECMH trauma-informed care concepts that honor families, communities, and culture. Trauma-informed care involves recognizing, responding to, and reflecting on symptoms of stress and trauma, and actively seeking to restore and maintain emotional safety to buffer against long-term negative impacts. The impacts of toxic stress and trauma in the earliest years can have lifelong impacts. Healthy brain development depends on nurturing and consistent relationships with parents/caregivers in safe and predictable environments, at home and in community-based settings. Children's sociocultural context, which includes their physical, social, cultural, economic, and historical circumstances, can have a large impact on their development. Healing and wellbeing can be supported through trauma-informed practices that recognize and honor the influence of the socio-cultural context on the family system. Recognizing the culture, history, and identity that families bring with them can be a source of strength and resilience.
The socio-cultural context of infant/early childhood mental health (IECMH) is important because culture shapes how parents and caregivers understand and promote a child's mental health. In this series, we will examine the importance of considering the context of IECMH related work, specifically how social-cultural context and our own beliefs, biases, and expectations impact our approach to work with infants, young children, and their families. We will continue to explore IECMH principles and concepts, while challenging ourselves to apply these principles to practice while considering how context and culture shape expectations around parenting, IECMH promotion, prevention, intervention, and research. We continue to examine how programs address attachment-based parenting, support parent-child interactions, enhance social supports, connect to culturally relevant community resources, and include provider self-care as an integral part of the work (Strong Roots, Zero to Thrive). We center discussions around issues of race, power, equity, and bias as we explore implications for promoting mental health and wellbeing of infants, young children, and families.
Series Facilitators: Sheila Grant Orphanides, MS, IMH-E® RIAIMH PD Coordinator & Susan Dickstein, PhD, IMH-E® , RIAIMH Executive Director
With generous support from:
Registration fee:
- RIAIMH Members: NO COST with active 2025 membership
- Non-Members: $40/session
- Undergraduate and Graduate Students: NO COST with valid student email entered during registration
CEUs:
- NASW (Social Work) Continuing Education Units (2hrs) $30/session
- CELP (Center for Early Learning Professionals) 2 contact hour no cost for participants
IECMH-Competencies toward IECMH-Endorsement® - suggested competencies noted on event participation certificate.
Session 1: The Border is Here Part 1: Immigration, Trauma, Separation, and Loss in Early Childhood
Date: January 28, 2025, 8:30-10:30am, Virtual
Session 2: The Border is Here Part 2: Interventions for Serving Immigrant Families and Caring for the Workforce
Date: February 25, 2025, 8:30-10:30am, Virtual
Featured Speakers:
Carmen Rosa Noroña, LICSW, MS. Ed., IECMH-E® & Ivys Fernández-Pastrana, JD, Center for Excellence in Immigrant Infant & Early Childhood Mental Health, Boston Medical Center
Description: Anti-immigration rhetoric ideology and nativism have permeated all corners of political and media discourse in the United States, making the socio-political climate the most hostile towards immigrant communities in modern history. The ripple effect of immigration policies and enforcement are multifaceted, multi-generational, and detrimental to the health, well-being, and socio-economic stability of immigrant communities regardless of immigration status.
The purpose of the two sessions is to build the capacity of Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health providers to understand and support the unique needs of caring for immigrant families with young children. This series will raise awareness about interlocking systems of oppression affecting both immigrant families and their service providers. It will provide an overview of how young children's well-being is affected by the trauma of family separation, whether threatened or actual, as a result of detention and deportation. It will explore the relationship between providers’ identities and work-related stress, including Secondary Traumatic Stress (STS). The presenters will introduce diversity-informed protective strategies to prevent and mitigate the primary and secondary effects of the work, including diversity-informed reflective practice, Radical Healing approaches, and organizational accountability. Participants will also learn about the “Family Preparedness Plan,” a developmentally- trauma- and diversity-informed tool, to support and empower immigrant families facing separation concerns.
Learning Objectives:
- Examine how immigration policies, enforcement practices, and sociopolitical climate impact the mental health and development of young children in immigrant families, with particular focus on the effects of family separation trauma and deportation threats.
- Analyze the intersecting impacts of identity, systemic oppression, and work-related stress (including Secondary Traumatic Stress) on both immigrant families and the mental health providers who serve them.
- Be introduced to diversity-informed protective strategies and tools, including reflective practice, Radical Healing approaches, and the Family Preparedness Plan, to support immigrant families while maintaining provider wellbeing and organizational accountability.
IECMH-Competencies toward IECMH-Endorsement® - suggested competencies for this session: Theoretical Foundations: Attachment, separation, trauma, grief and loss (1h), Cultural Humility (1h)
Policies:
Registration and Cancellation:
Pre-registration is suggested. Registering day of is welcome. Cancellation requests emailed to the event manager up to 7 days before event, will receive a full refund. No refunds for cancellation requests received after 7 days, regardless of the cause for cancellation including failure to join meeting on the day of the training. If the training cannot be held due to circumstances beyond the hosts’ control (natural disaster, strike, fire, severe weather, illness of speaker, speaker cancellation, etc.) the session will be rescheduled, if possible, and the registration fee applied to that date. If rescheduling is not possible or registrant cannot attend the rescheduled date, reimbursement will be provided less any actual costs accrued.
Zoom Link: Instructions to REGISTER for ZOOM LINK are included in the confirmation and reminder emails sent to all registrants.
Post Event Evaluation:
Nearly every RIAIMH event will have a post evaluation survey. We strive to include our members in many aspects of our Association and asking for their feedback is on the top of the list.
Evaluation links are shared through Zoom CHAT, pop-up window upon exiting the event, and in the post event "Thank you for attending" email.
All attendees are highly encouraged to complete the session evaluation. Those who purchased CEU credits must complete the evaluation to receive CEUs.
Continuing Education Units: optional
Full attendance and participation at the live/virtual event, including participation in the small group exercises, polls, survey, etc., meets the qualifications for 2.0 hours of continuing education credit as required by the National Association of Social Workers, Rhode Island Chapter (NASW) - units and the Center for Early Learning Professionals (CELP)-credit for Rhode Island's Early Childhood workforce.
In order to receive CEUs, attendees must register and purchase CEUs ($30) during event registration, there is a small fee to use a credit card. (CEU price is NOT included in registration).
Reminder, full attendance are required in order to receive CEUs and no partial credit will be offered (participants must join meeting by 8:45 am and leave no earlier than 10:25a). Failure to meet this requirements will prohibit RIAIMH from issuing certificates and no refund will be provided.
Attendance Certificate:
All professionals in attendance will receive an Attendance Certificate. This certificate lists speakers, session title, session date, and suggested Infant Mental Health Competencies®, for use in your IECMH-Endorsement® Application/Renewal.
Infant Mental Health Competencies®:
All RIAIMH events are aligned to the IMH-Competencies® . They will be listed on your Attendance and Continuing Education Certificate.
Please let us know if you have questions. info@riaimh.org
EVENTS Calendar RIAIMH members can see materials from past events HERE
RIAIMH is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. RIAIMH is a founding member of the Alliance for the Advancement of Infant Mental Health.
RIAIMH is an affiliate of the World Association for Infant Mental Health. |
