Recruit and Retain Infant and Toddler Mental Health Clinicians | North Carolina Early Childhood Foundation

Pathways Recommendation

Recruit and retain more clinicians for infant and toddler mental health, including clinicians of color.

Pathways Action Map > Expectation 4: Social-Emotional Health Action 4.1: Recruit and Retain Infant and Toddler Mental Health Clinicians

Why This Matters

The first three years of a child’s life lay the foundation for future learning, health, and development. Evidence-based treatments provided by qualified infant and early childhood mental health professionals are effective at improving young children’s mental health, especially for those who have experienced trauma. Like many states, NC lacks enough mental health clinicians who are qualified and certified to work with infants and toddlers.^{1, 2} Recruitment is especially difficult in rural areas. These shortages lead to gaps in service availability for families. Reducing turnover of clinicians is also important to implementing agencies and to providing high quality care.