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Safety Practices: Early childhood programs keep children safe when their facilities, materials, and equipment are hazard-free, and all staff use safety practices such as active supervision. Find resources to help staff and families reduce the number and severity of childhood injuries everywhere that children learn and grow. Discover tips for use at home, in cars and buses, on the playground, and in all early childhood settings.
Reporting suspected child abuse and neglect can protect children and help children and families connect to services. Use these resources to learn more on child abuse or neglect and to find training opportunities.
Online professional development course for mandated reporters of child abuse.
Mother to Baby: Information about Medications in Pregnancy and Lactation: This is the nation’s leading authority and most trusted source of evidence-based information on the safety of medications and other exposures during pregnancy and while breastfeeding. We specialize in answering questions about the safety/risk of exposures, such as medications, vaccines, chemicals, herbal products, substances of abuse, maternal health conditions and much more, during pregnancy or breastfeeding. Supported by HRSA.
Emergency Response and Recovery
Mental Health & Emotional Needs in an Emergency: Mental health support is a high priority after an emergency. Children and adults who have experienced stress and/or loss, either at the child care program or at home, may have difficulty coping. This site includes resources related to mental health to support response and recovery.
Webinar on Preparing for Emergencies with Mental Health in Mind: This webinar explores the often-overlooked mental health aspects of addressing emergencies. Learn concrete strategies to use when preparing for and responding to emergencies from a mental health perspective.
Mental Health Resources to Support Response and Recovery During COVID-19: Head Start and child care programs can use these tip sheets and resources with families and staff affected by a crisis or tragic event. Find materials on mental health and wellness, short- and long-term recovery, and caring for yourself during recovery.
Tips for Talking with and Helping Children and Youth Cope After a Disaster or Traumatic Event (PDF): Children and youth can face emotional strains after a traumatic event such as a car crash or violence. This tip sheet will help parents, caregivers, and teachers learn some common reactions, respond in a helpful way, and know when to seek support. Supported by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)
Parent Mental Health and Trauma, Depression and Substance Use Disorder
Head Start Heals Early childhood education programs play a vital role in supporting the social and emotional and mental health of children and families. This support is particularly important when children and families are exposed to traumatic events or situations that overwhelm their ability to cope. Head Start Heals supports increased awareness about how programs can help. Explore resources and watch videos here
Head Start Mental Health Resources: This landing page includes links to other tools and resources for Head Start and other early childhood programs support mental health and behavioral health of families served in their programs.
Family Well-being Focus on Parental Depression (PDF): This resource presents a summary of selected research, proven interventions, and program strategies intended to be useful for Head Start, Early Head Start, and other early childhood programs.
Connecting All Parents with Perinatal Mental Health Services: The video addresses the unique needs of specific birthing people — such as LGBTQI+ people, indigenous people, immigrants, and refugees — who may benefit from specialized or tailored mental health resources during and after pregnancy.
Mental Health Equity: Head Start programs can support the mental health of staff, children, and families by building upon the sources of strength and support within historically marginalized communities. These videos highlight the importance of understanding, affirming, and supporting nondominant ways of responding to mental health challenges.
Racial Justice Resources to Promote Social and Emotional Skills Webinar Series: This three-part series supports early childhood staff in building young children’s social and emotional skills by talking about race and diversity. Watch these videos to learn more about celebrating identities, building community, and resolving conflicts with resources designed for young children, their families, and the staff who care for them.
Behavioral Health Toolkit for Afterschool Programs: This toolkit was designed as a learning resource to enhance opportunities to support mental and social-emotional health for children and adolescents in afterschool programs. It includes: (1) an overview of emotions and behaviors seen in youth; (2) definitions and descriptions of common mental disorders; (3) signs and symptoms of crisis in youth; and (4) resources for managing challenging behaviors and accessing supports.
Supporting and Promoting Mental Health in Out-of-school Time (OST): This practice brief explores some of the current mental health needs of school-age children, their families, and the OST workforce. In addition, this brief discusses the social and emotional constructs that promote resilience, as well as examples of mental health supports that states and local jurisdictions can consider for collaborative implementation.
Mental Health Resources to Support Response and Recovery During COVID-19: This page has tip sheets and resources for families and staff affected by a crisis or tragic event. Find materials on mental health and wellness, short- and long-term recovery, and caring for yourself during recovery.
Understanding Trauma and Healing in Adults: Explore this series to learn about trauma and how traumatic events can impact families and staff. Find information to guide your conversations with families. Use these resources to promote healing, resilience, and family well-being. When families know they are understood, they can be more engaged and responsive to support.
Trauma-Responsive Care for Infants and Toddlers in Child Care: A Training for Trainers: This series provides rationale and guidance for implementing trauma-responsive care in child care settings that serve infants, toddlers, and their families. The six modules include "Caring for the Caregiver" which supports child care professionals working with Infant/toddlers and their families. This series also includes strategies that caregivers can use immediately to support I/T who have experienced trauma and thereby help to retain professionals and prevent "burn-out.”
Self-Regulation and Toxic Stress Series: This link provides practice-oriented resources and tip sheets on self-regulation and toxic stress from a team at the Center for Child and Social Policy at Duke University. This site includes practitioner tip sheets that describe how childcare professionals and teachers can support the development of self-regulation in young children; snap shots that summarize key concepts about self-regulation development and intervention across six age groups for practitioners and educators; and other resources.
Co-Regulation in Human Services: Co-regulation is a promising, strengths-based, approach to supporting self-regulation from the field of human development that is relevant across a broad range of relationship contexts in ACF programs. Co-regulation is the interactive process by which caring adults (1) provide warm supportive relationships, (2) promote self-regulation through coaching, modeling, and feedback, and (3) structure supportive environments. This link provides co-regulation practice resources and blogs that OPRE has developed.
Supporting Families Affected by Opioids: This site provides information on opioid use and how children and families are affected and offer policy practice examples intended to support child welfare, substance use treatment, and the courts, and other partners to strengthen their response.
Considerations for Trauma-Informed Child Care and Early Education Systems This resource provides an overview of research on early childhood trauma and its relevance to CCEE. The resource also offers evidence-informed strategies and best practices for CCEE leaders to consider when implementing trauma-informed approaches to support young children, parents/caregivers, and CCEE providers.
Infant/Toddler Family Engagement Resource: This is a series of tools that teachers can use to engage parents in the conversations about the Pyramid Model practices. The resource comes with a comprehensive teacher’s guide and four tools on different topics, including:
Positive Interactions with Siblings and Friends Teachers can use the techniques provided in this resource to facilitate excellent peer connections among their toddler students. (or siblings). Teachers can utilize the tool, including the teacher's handbook, family handout, and activity ideas, to initiate conversations about their children's playtime at home.
Labeling Emotions Teachers can use the materials in this resource to involve parents in educating their young children about emotional expression. The toolkit provides educators with a manual, a handout for families, and a suggestion for an activity that can be used to initiate conversations with parents on emotional development in the classroom.
National Center for Pyramid Model Innovations The Center helps states and programs implement sustainable systems for the Pyramid Model for Supporting Social Emotional Competence in infants and young children in early intervention and early education programs to improve the social, emotional, and behavioral outcomes of young children birth to five.
Caregiver Practices to Support Infant-Toddler Social Emotional Development (PDF): This handout outlines the caregiving practices that lead to healthy social emotional outcomes for infants and toddlers. Early interventionists also might use this handout as a resource when engaged in joint planning with caregivers.
The National Center on Afterschool and Summer Enrichment (NCASE) emphasizes that Out-of-School Time (OST) programs provide measurable benefits to youth and families, demonstrably improving academic and developmental outcomes along with other results such as positive youth-adult relationships and social-emotional learning. The Out-of-School Time Social-Emotional Learning and Mental Health Toolkit (Toolkit) was developed to support OST/School-age child care system leaders, technical assistance associates, and program providers.
Relationship-Based Care Overview: The evidence-based program practices developed by the Program for Infant/Toddler Care (PITC) offer a cohesive approach to high-quality care and education for children under age 3 (Program for Infant/Toddler Care). This site provides an overview of six essential program practices are primary caregiving, continuity of care, inclusive care, culturally responsive care, small group care, and individualized care. Together they provide a framework for promoting strong relationships that support positive early learning and development outcomes for infants and toddlers.
Relationship-Based Care Recorded Webinar Series: The recorded learning series was developed to introduce anyone working with infants, toddlers, and their families to the relationship-based care practices. These recordings also connect the relationship-based care practices with the Pyramid Model and show how the Infant/Toddler Environment Rating Scales (ITERS) and the Family Child Care Environment Rating Scales (FCCERS) measure relationship-based care practices. States, territories, and Tribes that use all three elements can use these recordings to begin a dialogue and support a basic understanding of the relationship-based care practices.
Relationship-Based Competencies to Support Family Engagement: This guide provides the knowledge, skills, and individual practices family services professionals need to engage with parents and families in any early childhood setting that offers family services.
Relationship Based Care: Essential Elements to Frame Support for Quality, Relationship-Based Infant and Toddler Care: This resource is intended to support professional development and technical assistance providers who are working with states and territories to ensure quality in family child care and center-based programs that serve infants and toddlers. The information in this resource can help readers better understand the essential elements of high-quality relationship-based infant and toddler care and help communicate their importance.
Relationship-Based Care for Infants and Toddlers: A Training for Trainers: This series provides rationale and guidance for implementing relationship-based care in family child care homes and child care centers that serve infants, toddlers, and their families. The content is based on the understanding that relationships are essential for healthy development. Responsive, nurturing relationships with caring adults provide safety and support for infants and toddlers to develop a sense of security and discover the world around them.
Building Relationships with Children This resource gives teachers strategies to encourage families to form relationships with their infants and toddlers. It includes a teacher's guide for utilizing the tool, a family handout, and an activity concept for communicating with families about building relationships with children.
Relationship-Building with Families As a result of using the tools provided by this resource, educators can better connect with students' families. It has two fill-in handouts—one for the instructor to use with students and one for them to use with their families.
Staff Wellness and Well-being
Prioritizing Staff Wellness: These resources help in developing a culture of wellness for Head Start and other early childhood staff by focusing on overall organizational wellness. This collection also includes information on how to develop a staff wellness action plan.
Program Strategies for Leaders and Supervisors: Leaders nurture the health of an entire workplace when they create and strengthen policies and practices that minimize staff stress and burnout, promote staff wellness, and support high-quality family engagement.
Self-care and Professionalism for Infant-Toddler Providers: This link provides resources to assist infant-toddler providers in prioritizing their health and wellness. Taking care of oneself also protects against the negative impact stress can have on their physical and mental health.
Self-Care Tips for Family Services Professionals and Home Visitors: Self-care promotes and restores psychological and physical health and helps create a sense of well-being. Finding simple but effective ways to support your own wellness benefits you, your program, and families.
Managing Stress with Mindful Moments: Explore how breathing and movement exercises can help you manage stress. Discover ways to use mindful movements to contribute to your self-care practices. Working to manage your own stress can make a big difference in your work with children, families, and colleagues.
ECD Workforce Staff Wellness Resources: These resources can help lead agencies and programs implement staff wellness supports such as guaranteed breaks during the work day, access to adult-sized furniture in classrooms, mentoring and coaching, and/or mental health consultation for ECE staff and providers.
These two information sheets help programs think and plan carefully for reflective supervision. This resource shares an information sheet for supervisors and for supervisees.
Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation
Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation and Your Program: Infant and early childhood mental health consultation (IECMHC) is an intervention that teams a mental health professional with early care and education staff and families. This team works on ways to help promote the social and emotional development of the young children in their care. Explore these resources to learn how to support programs as they select consultants and enhance their IECMHC services.
Implementing High-quality Mental Health Consultation: View this webinar to discover best practices for how mental health consultants can provide effective support within Head Start and other early care and education programs.
How Mental Health Consultants Support Child Care Programs: Infant and early childhood mental health consultation (IECMHC) is a powerful tool to promote mental health awareness, prevention, early identification, and referrals for treatment of children and families with mental health concerns. Mental health consultants help develop a culture of mental health in child care programs by building the adults’ capacity to strengthen and support the healthy social and emotional development of young children.
Center for Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation's Best Practice Tutorial Series This series is designed to enhance participants’ skills and knowledge around how to implement effective mental health consultation in early learning programs. Although it was designed to address the needs of Head Start and Early Head Start (HS/EHS) programs, the series is useful for all professionals involved in the early childhood programs.
