The Infant Mental Health Mentor provides information, guidance, and support to families, helping them enhance their parenting capabilities and strengthen attachment relationships with their infants and young children. They understand the conditions that optimize early brain development and support the use of interpreters and literature in languages that meet community needs.

The mentor conducts informal and formal observations and assessments to identify capacities, strengths, developmental delays, and emotional disturbances in infants and young children. They also assess relationship disturbances, disorders, and risks within early childhood families. Service plans are developed based on each child and family’s unique needs, history, lifestyle, strengths, and resources. The mentor promotes relationship-focused therapies that address attachment, separation, trauma, and loss. They recognize conditions requiring collaboration with professionals from health, mental health, education, and child welfare systems while remaining sensitive to cultural differences.

The Infant Mental Health Mentor advocates for relationship-centered services and family-focused practices by identifying program improvements and expansion opportunities. They collaborate with agencies, programs, and legislative bodies to develop and enhance services. The mentor may lead program development efforts, establish and monitor outcome measures for quality improvement, and provide feedback to agencies.

Additionally, the mentor supports funding efforts, including grant development, and advocates for resources benefiting families outside the dominant culture. They promote research and evaluation for program improvements, applying research findings to culturally responsive, relationship-focused policies. The mentor shares their expertise through publications and conference presentations, contributing to the broader field of infant mental health.