Since its inception, ECIN’s three central goals remain to:

• Protect and enhance parent mental health

• Optimize early childhood developmental outcomes

• Prepare children for school by age five.

Our vision remains focused on reduction of disparities in health and education outcomes for children through innovation, community collaboration, and policy and advocacy. Despite the challenges of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, ECIN has continued to implement key innovations and gather data to achieve this goal.

Learn about our achievements in 2021 and how they help us build a stronger framework for success in 2022.

Reaching people in the District of Columbia

ECIN focused on continuing virtual and in-person supports for more than 10,000 children, families and caregivers throughout 2021.

Equity and Co-Creation

No matter the setting, ECIN’s programs are focused on building and promoting wellness for adults and children. This work will always be grounded in a strong racial equity framework across all stages of a program, from development to implementation and evaluation.

We recognize and fully expect to leverage the unique strengths and assets in families and communities of color, and we also acknowledge the role that systemic racism plays in marginalizing communities of color.

It is essential that we prioritize co-creation with our community partners to ensure that families are treated as leaders in this work, and not simply clients or research subjects.

Holistic models ahead

ECIN’s focus on innovations has shifted to embrace the development of more holistic models in both education and healthcare settings to allow for comprehensive and integrated supports that reach more people. This design also allows us to concentrate evaluation and advocacy efforts that lean toward better understanding of what works, what doesn’t, and how to build sustainable, successful program models.

Early learning: PROMISE

The PROMISE model (Promoting Resilience and Mental Health In Education Settings for Early Childhood) is comprised of several components:

• Integrated clinical mental health services into early learning centers, which are settings with built-in trust and supports focused on healthy child development.

• A multi-tiered system of family supports using evidence-based approaches, including:

  • Universal mental health promotion for all families at the center

  • Targeted, light-touch interventions for parents having challenges with social support and community connectedness using positive parenting skills and peer support

  • Intensive clinical intervention when indicated for parents and children

  • Wellness coaching, mindfulness instruction, and referral to appropriate clinical services when needed for staff.

  • Classroom-based training and support through coaching and consultation to improve teachers’ capacities to understand and respond to social, emotional, and developmental needs of young children.

Health Settings: OATH

The OATH Model (Optimizing Access to Total Health) is designed to consolidate and broaden the scope of current ECIN innovations in the primary care setting, while streamlining available services for families. ECIN is exploring and discovering new ways to provide mental health supports to mothers and integrating those supports within the HealthySteps program at our primary care pediatric practices. This model aims to engage mental health promotion via professional consultation, peer supports and leadership development. Elements include:

• Early childhood screenings for behavior, development and family needs in coordination with family services associates

• Integration of child development specialists to provide mental health consultations and parental support through the evidence-based HealthySteps program

• Early intervention referrals and care coordination

• Enhanced services to support maternal mental health, including referrals for intensive clinical intervention when indicated

• Leadership development and peer network building for parents through Be Strong Families Parent Cafes and our partner organizations

Health settings: Maternal and early childhood mental health

ECIN is exploring and discovering new ways to provide mental health supports to mothers, and to integrate those supports with our primary pediatric care via Healthy Steps DC. This integration holds great promise to engage mothers in mental health promotion early and establish professional and peer supports that may continue seamlessly into the early childhood phase.

Education: Infant & Early Childhood Mental Health Certificate Program

ECIN and Georgetown University centers partnered to launch an Infant & Early Childhood Mental Health certificate program.  This program provides training to both professionals in mental health and to parents and family members as well. It is structured and targeted through three tracks:

• Families. The Certificate in Infant & Early Childhood Mental Health Family Leadership prepares caregivers of young children as front-line peer support and community health workers.

• Mental Health Consultants.  The Certificate in Infant & Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation (IECMHC) provides advanced training for mental health clinicians in the specialized role of consulting in early childhood settings.

• Clinicians and Educators.  The Certificate in Infant & Early Childhood Mental Health is a comprehensive program for professionals seeking to deepen their clinical knowledge and experience working with parents and young children.  

We look forward to sharing more with you about our newest innovations and our successes in the coming year.  

Satyani K.L. McPherson 

Mindfulness is being aware of the present moment experience with nonjudgment for ourselves and the current situation. Awareness is our inherent nature, a ubiquitous presence that is intangible and knowing. Thinking is a natural function of mind, yet thoughts can obscure perceived experience. Mindfulness is noticing thoughts and all phenomena with curiosity, allowing everything to be as it is, without suppressing or altering anything. We can be aware of phenomena and of awareness itself. Consistent mindfulness practice supports one’s ability to remain consciously aware, beyond thinking, throughout daily life. Shining the light of awareness on our physical sensations, thoughts, and emotions, can engender more skillful responses to life’s events.  

Thoughts are real but not all true. Thoughts are things, but they’re not you.
Thoughts lead to or from disaster. Thoughts are servants, not our masters.

~ Author Unknown 

We often see life, not as it truly is, but as we think it is, superimposing thoughts and judgments onto what is occurring. Countless causes and conditions give rise to each circumstance. Our thoughts, words, and actions in response to such conditions create our unique experiences of these circumstances, which may or may not be experienced by others. 

Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. ~ Buddha 

Whatever we hold on to, resist, or allow, influences our experience of the present moment. Judging thoughts can calcify one’s heart. Choosing to feel compassion for ourselves and others (while not necessarily condoning) is a practice that can free the heart and mind. A hard head and closed heart block the natural flow of life’s essence. Open hearts and minds are available to the infinite potentiality of aware presence. 

Energy flows where attention goes. That which we focus on expands. How does it feel in my body/mind/heart when experiencing certain sensations, emotions, thoughts, and especially judgements? How does it feel in my body when I let them go? 

Who would you be without that thought? ~ Byron Katie 

Clinging to identities, people, or things, causes suffering, whether dung or diamond. Each of us is responsible for our experience of the present moment. We do not have to believe our thoughts. Yet being aware of thoughts and all phenomena as they come and go, can foster clarity and ease.

Everything has an evolutionary purpose. There’s wisdom in it. ~ Gabor Maté 

How do I wish to exist in this life? Do I choose love, compassion, peace? Am I striving to alleviate suffering, eradicate injustice, transform my own ignorance and unskillful behavior? The invitation is to take our judging thoughts to the universal court of open awareness, an impartial presence which is judgment-free, knowing, and vast. This is our true nature. 

Know thyself. ~ Socrates 

All that is arises from and dissolves into universal awareness, including everyone and everything. Life offers the opportunity to be consciously aware and continue evolving our limited thinking and behavior until the last breath. This, I assert, is the purpose of human incarnation. 

Rest the mind in open awareness as it is. Be with whatever comes in the mind. Don’t choose, just listen to the mind, thoughts, feelings, perceptions, whatever comes. Finding nothing, that’s the gap. Be with the gap. Problem becomes solution. Obstacle becomes opportunity. ~ Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche 

Innate awareness is limitless and liberating. BE! 

Satyani McPherson, Founder of Kozmique Light Meditations, is a mindfulness mentor for the Family Wellbeing Program in ECIN’s PROMISE Model. She facilitates introspective self-care practices, trainings, and retreats for individuals and organizations. Satyani passionately supports people to be self-empowered and reach their full potential by living more consciously as awareness in action.

Did you know that ECIN curates a “living” list of resources dedicated to racial equity?

The first tab at the link below features “Learn and Unlearn” content for adults, children and teens, and organizations. The second tab has recommendations for how anyone can “Get Involved.”