Building and Sustaining a Comprehensive Mental Health System of Care

Webinar Overview and Purpose
📌 The webinar focuses on Mental Health Strategies in Action, specifically outlining recommendations for improving mental health supports using Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) resources.
👩‍🏫 The discussion extends from a recently released Office of Child Care (OCC) Information Memorandum (IM) that clarifies allowable uses of CCDF funds for mental health.
📅 This was the first of two sessions, with the second focusing on workforce supports for mental health in out-of-school time.

CCDF and Mental Health System of Care Framework
📌 The Child Care and Development Fund is a $12.3 billion program that funds services to help low-income families afford childcare and improve overall childcare quality.
🧩 The mental health system of care framework is organized around three elements: mental health promotion, prevention and family strengthening, and increasing access to behavioral healthcare.
💡 Lead agencies are encouraged to use the IM as a menu of choices for short, medium, and long-term activities, partnering with other agencies to achieve goals.

Key Strategies in Action
📌 Promotion Strategy 1 (Family Information): Sharing resources on children's social-emotional development and parental wellbeing; recommends utilizing "Learn the Signs. Act Early." materials, which are free and co-brandable.
📌 Promotion Strategy 3 (Workforce Skills): Building the skills of the childcare workforce in mental health and adult behavioral health through training, potentially using micro-learning suites like the Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Micro-Learning Suite.
📌 Prevention Strategy 5 (Evidence-Based Approaches): Supporting the implementation of curricula like the Pyramid Model or Conscious Discipline, prioritizing areas with children at risk for poor mental health outcomes.
📌 Access Strategy 8 (Navigators/Peers): Increasing access to community health workers, family navigators, and peer support specialists to help providers and families address basic needs and access care, noting that up to 44% of providers report financial hardship.

Workforce Wellbeing and Support
😥 Recent data shows high stress levels in the childcare field; about 50% of providers report symptoms of anxiety or depression, often exacerbated by material hardships (e.g., 1 in 3 experiencing hunger).
🤝 The importance of making support accessible, especially to family childcare homes, highlights the need for navigators and peer support specialists to reduce the burden of time on busy providers.
🧘 Feeling seen and heard through coaching, mentorship, and reflective supervision is crucial for staff wellbeing, mirroring the support needed for infants and families.

Key Points & Insights
➡️ The Information Memorandum (IM) is designed to provide actionable and allowable activities to support the mental health of children, families, and the early childhood workforce.
➡️ Agencies should use data to increase equity and access to mental health outcomes, utilizing data sources provided in the IM appendix to identify areas of greatest need.
➡️ Technical assistance, including professional development, peer-to-peer networks, and communities of practice, is immediately available to assist lead agencies with implementation and prioritization.
➡️ Mental health support extends beyond clinical treatment; strengthening relationships, offering consultation, and providing basic needs support through navigators are considered essential interventions and treatments.

📸 Video summarized with SummaryTube.com on Dec 30, 2025, 17:58 UTC