Endorsement Categories & Requirements
Endorsement Categories
There are four categories of Endorsement designed to target different professional areas within the infant-family field.
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Infant Family Associate: This category is intended for individuals whose scope of work is promotion. This can include early childhood educators, court-appointed special advocates (CASA), lactation consultants, early head start teachers, program administrators, home visitors, pediatric health care providers, early interventions providers*
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Infant Family Specialist: This category is intended for individuals whose scope of work is prevention. This can include early intervention providers, infant coaches, home visitors, infant mental health consultants, child welfare case managers*
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Infant Mental Health Specialist: This category is intended for individuals whose scope of work is clinical intervention/ treatment. This can include parent-infant psychotherapy, parent-child psychotherapists, infant mental health specialists, private practice therapists*
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Infant Mental Health Mentor: There are 3 additional designations listed within the Infant Mental Health Mentor category: Clinical (C), Policy (P), and Research/Faculty (R/F). These designations target professionals with advanced degrees who have experience providing infant mental health reflective supervision and other leadership (C), who are leaders in policy and/or program administration related to the infant-family field (P), or are leaders in university-level teaching and/or published research related to the infant-family field (R/F).*
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*Please note that these are only examples of the types of jobs a provider may have at this particular category. This is not an exhaustive list. Moreover, Endorsement categories are not meant to act as a hierarchy, but rather as a way to organize the wide range of occupations that exist in this field.
Providers are encouraged to contact First3Years’ Endorsement coordinator with questions Endorsement@first3yearstx.org
Endorsement Competencies
Each applicant is required to demonstrate a set of competencies through training and/ or education based on their category of Endorsement. You can view the competencies related to each category of Endorsment by clicking the button below.