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Scholarships from Connected Beginnings

Program Summary

The Connected Beginnings Training Institute Scholarship Program provides opportunities for financial assistance for beginning, intermediate, and advanced training in infant and early childhood mental health. The scholarship program supports both current and future infant-toddler and preschool mental health specialists and professional and paraprofessional practitioners from a range of disciplines such as medicine, nursing, social work, psychology, physical therapy, early childhood education, occupational therapy, speech and language who are well positioned in a variety of settings to enhance the social and emotional well-being of infants, toddlers, preschoolers, their parents, and other significant caregivers. These settings might include early education and care, child welfare, home visiting programs, and early intervention.

Eligibility

To be eligible for a scholarship, applicants must currently work in settings that serve families with young children. Applicants must also be enrolled in specific training programs or courses that prepare them to work collaboratively with parents and other caregivers to promote social and emotional well being, to identify and address early signs of disturbances in the relational well being of very young children and their significant caregivers and to intervene to help establish or restore nurturing relationships when disruptions occur.

The training must focus on four key content areas:

  1. the emotional development of babies, toddlers, and preschoolers;
  2. the emotional contribution of parents and other caregivers;
  3. the dynamics of relationships; and
  4. the self-reflective capacity of the practitioner.

Trainings must integrate a framework for exploring practitioners’ and parents’ cultural expectations around childrearing and developmental milestones and enhance participants’ capacity to observe and interpret behavior and provide meaningful feedback. In 2007-2008 eligible programs included Jewish Family and Children’s Service’s, Infant-Parent Training Institute, Nursing Child Assessment Satellite Training (NCAST), and IN-TIME Training developed by Thom Child & Family Services.

Currently, there are two training programs that qualify for scholarships: the Infant-Parent Training Institute and IN-TIME. For information and an application for the Infant-Parent Training Institute Scholarship, please click here. For and application for the IN-TIME Scholarship, please click here. The Connected Beginnings Scholarship Review Committee will review applications.