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.
How to View Requirements
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1. Head to https://first3years.myeasy.org/competency-guidelines
2. Select the category you are interested in
3. Select Requirements on the left hand side to view
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Our Endorsement Coordinator is available to help, please email endorsement@first3yearstx.org.
The materials supporting the First3Years Competency Guidelines are copyrighted by the Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health (MI-AIMH). First3Years can make these materials available to our membership and collaborators through a licensing agreement with the MI-AIMH.
Copyright law does allow individuals to print out or make ONE copy of copyrighted material for personal, non-commercial purposes only. None of the copyrighted Endorsement documents included here may be reproduced, displayed, distributed or otherwise used in any format, including electronically, without the express written consent of MI-AIMH. Legal action will be taken against those who violate the copyright.