1. Warm Connections: Integration of Infant Mental Health Services into WIC
- Author
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Kelly Glaze, Karen A. Frankel, Susanne Klawetter, and Ashley Sward
- Subjects
Gerontology ,Mental Health Services ,Health (social science) ,Child Health Services ,Exploratory research ,Mothers ,Health Promotion ,Article ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Pregnancy ,Humans ,030212 general & internal medicine ,Early childhood ,Child ,Poverty ,Depression (differential diagnoses) ,High rate ,Infant mental health ,Pilot implementation ,Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health ,Infant ,Mental health ,030227 psychiatry ,Psychiatry and Mental health ,Distress ,Child, Preschool ,Female ,Psychology - Abstract
Low-income women experience disproportionately high rates of adverse maternal mental health outcomes, such as pregnancy-related depression, and have less access to behavioral health support. Adverse maternal mental health affects children through compromising bonding, impeding early childhood development, and increasing risks of child maltreatment. Integrated behavioral health approaches can improve access to behavioral health services by locating services in community-based settings routinely accessed by low-income families. Warm Connections is an innovative integrated behavioral health program delivered in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) and rooted in an infant and early childhood mental health (IECMH) framework. This exploratory study describes Warm Connections and provides evaluation results from its pilot implementation. Findings suggest Warm Connections may reduce distress and increase parenting efficacy among low-income mothers and support further research of this program's feasibility.
- Published
- 2020