Shifting the Conversation to Early Relational Health
At Neighborhood Villages, we believe that early childhood education programs have the potential to be powerful hubs for positive Early Relational Health (ERH). Through an innovative new pilot, Neighborhood Villages is working to reimagine early childhood education settings as spaces where children, families, and educators can thrive emotionally, socially, and developmentally.
Our early relational health project seeks to address critical gaps in our early education system by equipping programs with the tools, resources, and workforce needed to meet children’s relational and developmental needs—all while setting a new standard for excellence and equity in Massachusetts and beyond.
Why a shift to Early Relational Health Matters
Early Relational Health is a shift in the way we understand behaviors or mental health for our youngest learners. ERH suggests that the way caregivers, inclusive of educators, respond to a child’s needs. The emotional tone of the interactions, and the consistency of these early experiences can influence a wide range of behaviors that we see in children. Each relationship in a child’s life, particularly with adults, plays a role and ends up being the foundation of a child’s social, emotional, and cognitive development. These formative relationships—if they are consistent, nurturing interactions between young children and their caregivers—are critical during the first five years of life, when 90% of brain development occurs. Positive relational experiences help children build secure attachments, regulate stress, and develop the resilience needed to navigate life’s challenges.
However, many young children face significant barriers to forming these secure relationships due to stressors such as poverty, housing instability, and other adverse childhood experiences. These challenges can have lifelong implications for mental health, learning, and well-being. Early childhood education settings offer a unique opportunity to change this narrative by supporting the foundations of positive relational health more broadly in an effort towards promotion and prevention, and providing children with access to intervention resources based on individual needs.
The Role of Early Childhood Education in Advancing Relational Health
Historically, mental health and early education have been siloed, often relying on external services, consultation, and support from outside agencies. This fragmentation creates challenges, as services are frequently delayed, coordination is difficult, and implementing specialized services, such as infant and early childhood mental health support, can be costly for early education programs to sustain. We believe that by creating a more integrated system through an Early Relational Health lens, early childhood education programs are the most appropriate settings to incorporate infant and early childhood mental health work alongside early education. This approach allows for early intervention connections, prevention, and the promotion of healthy development at the outset.
Early childhood education programs are spaces where young children spend significant time engaging in relationships with adults, and therefore, are crucial places where relationships form and shape the brain and development.With the right infrastructure and capacity, these programs can provide children and families with access to resources that promote strong emotional connections, address developmental challenges, and increase equity.
Unfortunately, the current early childhood education system faces significant challenges, including staffing shortages, limited training, and systemic inequities that disproportionately impact children from underserved communities. The pandemic has further exacerbated these issues, increasing stress and developmental delays among children while overwhelming educators with these new behavioral and emotional challenges.
Neighborhood Villages’ Multi-Tiered System of Supports for Relational Health
To address these gaps, Neighborhood Villages has developed a Multi-Tiered System of Supports tailored specifically for early childhood education programs. This framework integrates foundational, targeted, and intensive supports to meet the diverse needs of children, educators, and families:
Foundational Supports: Professional development, curricula, and coaching to create developmentally appropriate, nurturing environments that foster strong educator-child relationships for all children.
Targeted Supports: Developmental screenings and parent education to address moderate relational and developmental challenges.
Intensive Supports: Trauma-informed care and therapeutic services for children facing significant adversity.
Lisa Garcia
Director of Early Relational Health
“One of our top priorities is creating a cohesive language across all systems involved in early childhood care. We need to move away from viewing behavioral issues in isolation and start thinking about the quality of relationships and the environments in which children grow. Our focus is on shifting from an individualized lens to a relational lens, where we consider how systems, both small and large, can create ecosystems where children can thrive,” said Lisa Garcia, Director of Early Relational Health at Neighborhood Villages.
By embedding this framework into early childhood education settings, Neighborhood Villages aims to transform these programs into safe, stable, and nurturing environments where all children can thrive.
Key Innovations: New Roles and Workforce Development
The infant and early childhood mental health workforce has traditionally relied on clinicians with advanced degrees to deliver targeted mental health services to children. Demand for such support has never been higher, especially in early childhood, but the sector faces a severe shortage of these professionals. This shortage, worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic, leaves early education programs unable to meet the growing mental and behavioral health needs of children and families. This crisis highlights the need for innovation—not just in expanding the clinical workforce, but also in rethinking how support is provided across the spectrum of needs, from promotion and prevention to intervention, and determining when specialized clinical expertise is necessary.
Central to Neighborhood Villages’ initiative are two specialized and non-clinical roles designed to expand the capacity of early childhood education programs:
Early Relational Health Specialists: These professionals work directly with educators to promote secure, emotionally supportive relationships in classrooms. They provide training on attachment theory, emotional regulation, and relational dynamics, fostering a culture of relational health across programs.
Inclusion Specialists: Focused on ensuring equitable access to education for all children, Inclusion Specialists support educators in adapting strategies to meet diverse needs and guide families in accessing external services.
These roles not only address immediate needs but also establish sustainable processes to strengthen relational health within early childhood education settings.
Building a Professional Development Pathway
To sustain and grow the early relational health workforce, Neighborhood Villages is creating an accessible professional development pathway for early childhood education professionals. This initiative acknowledges the challenge of recruiting qualified individuals for this work and the limited investments in training and capacity building within programs, and therefore helps fill the gap by providing the training needed to develop more professionals who can support this crucial work. This initiative includes items such as:
Circle of Security Training: Enhancing educators’ ability to support healthy attachment relationships.
Trauma-Informed Practices: Equipping staff to address the impact of trauma on young children.
Early Relational Health Certificate Program: Offering comprehensive training in relational health through a partnership with the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School.
Massachusetts Association for Infant Mental Health Endorsement: Aligning professional development with the Massachusetts Association for Infant Mental Health standards and competencies.
These efforts aim to ensure that all early childhood education staff have the knowledge and skills needed to create positive environments with an early relational health frame.
A Vision for the Future
Through this project, Neighborhood Villages is piloting a first-of-its-kind model for integrating early relational health practices into early childhood education programs. The pilot will directly impact 800 children and 300 educators annually across five Boston-based early childhood education programs. By partnering with organizations like Brazelton Touchpoints Center and Walker Therapeutics, Neighborhood Villages is committed to rigorous evaluation and continuous improvement, ensuring that this model can be scaled and replicated statewide.
Ultimately, our vision is to establish Massachusetts as a national leader in early relational health innovation. By bridging the gaps in early childhood education staffing, training, and systemic supports, Through its innovative and systemic approach, Neighborhood Villages is setting the groundwork to shift the conversation from behavior management to preventative foundation building and an early relational health framework in early childhood programs.