Early years student mental health
The early years are foundational to development, growth and a positive mental health across the lifespan. Close and secure relationships with caring adults allow young children to learn social and emotional skills, experience, manage and express a full range of emotions and explore the environment and learn within the context of family, community and culture1
Brief overview
Parents/caregivers, and families are a child’s first teachers and many of these skills are learned naturally through day-to-day experiences at home. Kindergarten classrooms offer another rich environment through which children can learn and practice social-emotional skills. These settings have many opportunities for students to gather confidence and competence in navigating social relationships, regulating their emotions, learning routines and persevering with challenging activities2.
Sometimes young children struggle with their emotions and behaviours in the school environment. Often, this is a developmental or adjustment issue that resolves as the student matures or gets accustomed to this new setting. At times however, the student’s social or emotional difficulties are more long-lasting or concerning.
The role of the school mental health professional
Helping educators understand and optimize their role in promoting good mental health in kindergarten and primary classrooms is an important contribution that school mental health professionals can make. Offering information about strategies for creating welcoming environments, self-regulation and identity-affirming, social-emotional skill-building can help educators to set up students for success.
School mental health professionals can also assist with early identification of mental health problems. It can be difficult for educators to identify mental health problems in young children, particularly given the range in development observed in kindergarten classrooms. With your background in child development, and sensitive, specific and culturally relevant tools for assessment, you can help to determine if a student’s difficulty in regulating emotions and behavior, aggression, social withdrawal, shyness, etc. is within the normal range or something to be concerned about3.
Finally, as a school mental health professional, you can provide consultation and support for young students struggling with a mental health problem. This might include supporting the educator team in the selection and implementation of more intensive or targeted social-emotional skill development or assistance with self-regulation. It might also include help with classroom management or support for parents/caregivers. You can also play a significant role in facilitating referrals to community mental health agencies when appropriate and in liaising between agencies and school staff3,4.
For more information
The Centre on the Developing Child Harvard University has a range of evidence-based resources related to healthy child development.
Infant Mental Health Promotion (IMHP) is located at the Hospital for Sick Children and houses a number of resources and training programs, many of which are offered free of charge.
The Merhit Centre includes a range of resources and training offerings related to self-regulation.
Our Kids Network in the Halton Region has compiled a helpful Early Years Mental Health Toolkit. Included in this is the Beyond Building Blocks: Investing in the lifelong mental health of Ontario’s three- to six-year-olds
Nurturing the Seed : The Journey to Infant and Early Mental Health and Wellness
CMAS: Supporting the Settlement of Young Refugee and Immigrant Children
Have a question about this topic?
Contact us. We can review relevant research to help to answer your question. In cases where several requests focus on the same theme, we can arrange for a more comprehensive review which will be shared on the School Mental Health Ontario site.
Resources
- Mental Health Commission of Canada
- The Kindergarten Program, 2016
- National Association of School Psychologists. (2015). Early Childhood Services: Promoting Positive Outcomes for Young Children (Position statement). Bethesda, MD: Author.
- Roesinger, H., Kurland, E., & McGoey, K. (2021). School-Based Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation (Research summary). National Association of School Psychologists.