Stefanie Powers, Editor
Improving the quality of services for infants, toddlers, and their families requires a focus on their unique needs. The articles in this issue of the Journal explore a variety of elements that improve services for young children and their families:
- The technique of “Skilled Dialogue” provides early intervention-ists with a framework and supporting strategies to consider when forming and sustaining partnerships with caregivers in El, especially when navigating topics or conversations that might be perceived as uncomfortable or difficult.
- How daily caregiving practices, such as diapering, can be trans-formed from a rushed routine to an opportunity to enhance child well-being and involvement.
- How staff training can build capacity to effectively deliver trauma-in-formed intervention in community-based settings.
- How an age-appropriate diagnostic classification, DC:0-5TM: Diagnostic Classification of Mental Health and Developmental Disorders of Infancy and Early Childhood (ZERO TO THREE, 2016) as a standard of practice can be an effective strategy for improving access to services and supports and improving outcomes for children.
- Considerations of the use of media by very young children, and the importance of maximizing human-to-human interactions for healthy brain development.
- The power of professional partnerships when staff members join forces to create strong relationships on behalf of young children and families jointly served by their organizations.
The ZERO TO THREE Journal also continually striving for quality improvement in our efforts to meet the professional development needs of our readers. To that end, we have initiated an effort to connect each article to the ZERO TO THREE Competencies for Prenatal to Age 5 Professionals, a model that was developed to strengthen prenatal to age 5 (P-5) professionals’ capacity to collaborate and coordinate services on behalf of young children and their families. The Competencies provide a consensus of eight domains of knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary for responsive, comprehensive, and collaborative services and work among the professionals working in five identified fields or service sectors. In each article in the Journal, you will notice a box at the bottom of the first page that identifies the P-5 competency domains most strongly supported by the article. You can find an explanation and a graphic of the icons on page 4, as well as online at www.zerotothree.org/p-5. The P-5 Competencies Model is now linked to every source of professional development that ZERO TO THREE offers.
Stefanie Powers, Editor spowers@zerotothree.org
ZERO TO THREE. (2016). DC:0-5TM: Diagnostic classification of mental health and developmental disorders of infancy and early childhood. Washington, DC: Author.
