Overview

The Head Start Bureau and the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation announced the award of five cooperative agreements in September 2002 as part of the Early Promotion and Intervention Research Consortium (E-PIRC). These four-year grants fund partnerships between academic researchers and Early Head Start programs designed to develop and test approaches to supporting the mental health of infants and toddlers and their families within the Early Head Start program. This effort is part of the Early Head Start Mental Health Initiative, which emerged from the Infant Mental Health Forum, a national meeting convened by the Head Start Bureau in October 2000 (ACYF, 2001). The initiative consists of both programmatic and research components. The new research consortium will aid programmatic planning and continuous quality improvement. This will be accomplished through the provision of empirically validated approaches to providing comprehensive mental health supports for very young children and their families.

The project period is 10/1/02-9/30/06.