Month: November 2021

Infant mental health home visiting — as well as the Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health (MI-AIMH) — evolved from a request by Selma Fraiberg to the director of the Michigan Department of Mental Health (MDMH) in 1972 to fund graduate students to train in the developing Child Development Project in Ann Arbor. Betty Tableman, then a MDMH staff person who later became the Director of Prevention Services, suggested that staff already employed by Michigan community mental health agencies be funded to carry out the new intervention instead. 

In 1973, six clinicians from CMH agencies across the state formed the first training group, meeting bi-weekly in Ann Arbor under Fraiberg, Vivian Shapiro, and Edna Adelson’s guidance to learn about the infant-parent dyad.  Their work was based on Fraiberg’s intervention with blind children and their families. The work was complex and challenging, and the trainees asked for and received a second year of training.  They took their skills back to their home communities and found that their work had deepened; relationships between infants and parents changed, and development improved while their hunger to learn more increased. 

The trainees were on fire with their knowledge and wanted to follow Fraiberg’s dictum to “share what they were learning about mothers and babies with their colleagues.” They formed the Michigan Association of Infant Mental Health in 1977 and hosted its first conference with T. Barry Brazelton as the plenary speaker with more than 800 people attending. Wanting to continue to share the developing knowledge and information about service delivery in the state, the Infant Crier was born, again, under the leadership of Betty Tableman, who served as the first editor. Consider that at the time, there was no internet, no email, and no email blasts.  Rather than checking your voice mail, text, or twitter, you would look in your office mailbox for messages taken by department secretaries.  Reading the Infant Crier, which arrived in your mailbox rather than your inbox, became an important way to learn about this growing field and to connect with others sharing your interest and dedication promoting secure attachment relationships for very young children.

Looking back, we see Betty’s hand in Infant Crier articles that focused on social policy, news clips and emerging clinical content. Deborah Weatherston followed as editor from 1998-2009.  Under her editorial direction, the Infant Crier became a more clinically focused tool to share knowledge, personal reflections, and social policy. It connected those working with infants, very young children, and their families, across disciplines, from across the state and gradually across the country and world. The Infant Crier became a treasured publication to help develop and nurture understanding of infant, young child, and family development, attachment, and relationship-based work. 

As Debbie transitioned to MI-AIMH’s first Executive Director, Joan Shirilla served as the Associate Editor, beginning in 2002 through 2009. Articles from leaders in the field, such as Barry Wright, Ph.D., Doug Davies, Ph.D., Michael Trout, M.A., Julie Ribaudo, LMSW, and many others shared didactic information and personal reflections about the complex world of very young children and their families. Jeri Lea Lentini, LMSW, also served as co-editor for several years, sharing her wisdom and clinical expertise. She was followed by Jennifer DeSchryver, Psy.D., who served as editor, bringing with her extensive clinical insight and editing skills.

Joan stepped in as Infant Crier editor in 2013, sharing it for two years with Kerry Baughman, who moved the publication to its more updated online format, making the Infant Crier more accessible and less costly. 

In 2020, the leadership of the Infant Crier transitioned to Danielle Davey, LMSW, and Kristyn Driver, LMSW, both highly skilled and seasoned IMH clinicians and supervisors. Their passion for the field is apparent in their work and they are eager to provide a platform for both seasoned and new clinicians to share their work and reflections. They are committed to reflecting best practice in the Infant Crier, to offer a deeper exploration of issues of diversity, equity and inclusion in Infant Crier articles. We are excited to introduce our talented new editors and look forward to Infant Crier articles that continue to help us grow as clinicians and people.

Reference

Tableman, Betty. Reflections on MI-AIMH’s History. Reflections from the Field. 2017. 11-13. 

As infant mental health clinicians who have both been in the field for over a decade, we’ve found that the Infant Crier has always been a consistent part of our experience. It has informed our work and has created conversations and deeper relationships that have allowed us to feel more connected within the greater MI-AIMH community. As the new editors of the Crier, we hope to continue to cultivate a space in which all readers will see themselves reflected in the writings of their colleagues and that it will be an avenue to build their own unique connections and relationships within themselves, the organization and the field.

We’re trained early in our careers to be curious about the interactions between caregivers and young children. Therefore, we have an obligation to understand our own lens, how our cultural experiences shape how we understand and believe what the care of young children involves. We see the writing process as another way to channel the reflective process. It is a way of bringing the implicit to light. When we write, it is from our own perspective. As editors, we will be inviting prospective authors to be more intentional in thinking about who they are, who the other is and how that impacts not only how a relationship unfolded but  how they can share it with the broader community through their writing. 

The Crier is a tangible record of our history. As the new editors, we’ve spent time deepening our understanding of the history and intent of the Crier and value the work that has been done in support of representation across our field. However we recognize that more work lies ahead for the Crier to fully become an equitable space. As we will be inviting potential writers to be aware of their lens and what their limitations might be, as two white women editing the Crier we are committed to doing the same.

 Our first action step is to create an editorial team of diverse infant and early childhood professionals across the state to ensure that our issue themes, articles and authors reflect multiple perspectives, a wider range of experience and more inclusive wisdom and knowledge. Our hope is this team will open the door to authors we haven’t yet heard from to highlight the range of voices that make up who we are. 

Working within the infant and early childhood field we often think about the past, its impact on the present and how to intentionally affect the future. We hope the Crier will be an outlet for our field to be thinking about where we’ve been and where we’re going and that it can continue to be the record keeper of our history. 

Sincerely,

Danielle Davey, LMSW, IMH-E® & Kristyn Driver, IMH-E®, Infant Mental Health Mentor-Clinical

As the editors of the Infant Crier, it feels important to highlight the Commitment Statement created by the Centering Equity Committee, as we believe the Crier is another reflective space where we can uphold commitments to equity and inclusion throughout our community.

The MI-AIMH Centering Equity Committee, which is comprised of the MI-AIMH Executive Director, Central Office Staff, Board Members and Leaders, and Members, declare the following Commitment Statement:

As a committee, we commit to prioritizing diversity, racial equity and inclusion in all of MI-AIMH’s decision making, policies and practices. We recognize that actions and practices that MI-AIMH as a system has created, developed and engaged-in over time have perpetuated racist and inequitable practices, which has directly caused harm to Black, Brown, and Indigenous People of Color. The MI-AIMH Centering Equity Committee will work to dismantle white supremacy and create a foundation of culturally sensitive, anti-oppressive practices within the organization and among its members. The committee is dedicated to an ongoing critical review of all information disseminated by the organization that excludes, divides and is rooted in oppressive practices. We commit to reflecting and adapting our current practices and systems that have caused harm. The committee will work closely with the broader organization to ensure that voices from all races, cultures and viewpoints are represented within all parts of the organization. We value the diversity and unique perspectives among our membership and the families we serve. The committee will be intentional in amplifying the voices of professionals and communities that have long been excluded from the core of the Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health field and the MI-AIMH organization.

Initial Action Steps of the Centering Equity Committee:

1. To hold the MI-AIMH organization and its leaders accountable to uphold equitable practices
2. To intentionally embed Irving Harris Foundation’s Diversity-Informed Tenets for Work with Infants, Children and Families into all practices carried out by MI-AIMH
3. To revise racist and oppressive materials, publications and communications
4. To cultivate reflective spaces to engage in ongoing dialogue in regards to oppression, power, privilege, bias, white supremacy and racism that allows for a culturally reparative parallel process to unfold that reaches systems, professionals, communities, families and children