What is Infant Mental Health?

Infant mental health is an inter-disciplinary field of reseach, clinical practice and public policy-making concerned with maximizing the emotional, physical, social and cognitive well-being of zero to five year old children and their caregivers.

Infant mental health assumes that:

• All babies begin life with their own unique temperament, maturational schedule, and individual differences.
• Human relationships are powerful conditioners of infant development.
• Environmental influences also impact heavily on the development of infants.
• Parenthood is a developmental process, and parents also grow.
• Risk, coping, and capacity to master adversity are important factors in the development of infants.
• Early intervention is the best kind of prevention.

What is the MeAIMH?

The Maine Association for Infant Mental Health was founded in 1982 (incorporated in 1987) in response to a growing interest and concern in Maine for the psychosocial and physical well-being of infants and their families. The Association is an interdisciplinary organization that:

• Encourages awareness of infancy as a critical period in the development of individuals.
• Works to increase the sophistication of its members' ability to respond to the needs of infants and their families.
• Promotes optimal development and wellness of the child and family through prevention, identification, treatment and support.
• Facilitates cooperation and collaboration among groups, agencies and individuals that serve children and families in Maine.

The MeAIMH holds training conferences each year in May and also sponsors additional courses, clinical institutes and seminars of interest to social workers, psychologists, day care providers, early intervention specialists, nurses and members of other professions who work with infants, young children and their families.

MeAIMH Board meetings are held monthly and are open to Association members and their guests.