Mental Wellness

Happy September!

I hope you had a great summer and have been taking care of yourself, filling your mental health bucket, so that you can fill all those little buckets in your care!

I believe that mental wellness is the core of a child’s best start; more and more of us are advocating for strategies that help communities work together to support early childhood mental health. Here at Kids First we’ve worked with a mental health consultant in the early childhood classrooms for over 15 years; and we know it’s made a difference for children, families, and the childcare teachers!

There is a great new resource from Mental Health Colorado – the Early Childhood Mental Health Toolkit. Many of our communities will be holding meetings soon to increase awareness about this important topic including what do I need to know? What works? How can the initiative be funded? Good questions right!

Young children need to learn mental health skills in much the same way they learn cognitive or gross motor skills, by modeling and practicing. ZERO TO THREE defines infant and early childhood mental health as the developing capacity of the child from birth to 5 years of age to form close relationships, manage and express emotions, explore the environment, and learn.

As many of you know expertise and support for early childhood mental health varies across the state. This is part of the overall effort to assess, promote, and support new practice for young children. Please download and read this great resource, it is such an important part of the great work you all do with young children!

• Mental health consultation can increase overall early learning quality, teachers’ self-efficacy, and teachers’ competence.
• Early childhood mental health consultation is a cost-effective means for infusing mental health services into early childhood settings.
• Early childhood teachers can have a significant impact on children’s well being when they are receiving input about healthy interactions with their students. An  11-state evaluation of pre-kindergarten classrooms showed that high-quality teacher-child interactions predicted increased levels of social skills and lower levels of behavioral problems.

Greetings from your Rocky Mountain Early Childhood Council!

Kristin Sparkman                                                  Stacy Petty
Early Childhood Specialist                                    RMECC Coordinator
rmeccspecialist@mtnvalley.org                            rmecc@mtnvalley.org
719-293-2378                                                    719-486-7273

Through the Bridge to Their Futures Campaign, our community is stepping up in a big way to help us transform our new home at 504 21st Street in Glenwood Springs into a warm and welcoming place. River Bridge will be forever gratefull for the funds that have been contributed so far, River Bridge has been able to move into our new facility, and we have expanded our team to better serve our community. Our larger space includes offices for our therapists and comfortable exam rooms for women and children. Although we have come a long way, the work of creating a safe haven for children and their families in our new building continues. 

To learn more about River Bridge and the services we offer, we are pleased to welcome you to one of our River Bridge 101 presentations. River Bridge professionals provide information about child abuse statistics, some myths and facts, victim and offender dynamics, the purpose and process of a Child Advocacy Center in general, and River Bridge in particular.  

River Bridge Regional Center, where silence
ends + healing begins

ASK A NURSE

Now that kids are back in school we see an increased number of illnesses, so here are some tips on how to stay healthy.
First, wash your hands frequently with warm water and soap. Lather up for 20 seconds to help remove germs before prepping food or eating, after using the bathroom, changing a diaper, blowing noses or tending to cuts and sores.  This is one of the best ways to prevent the spread of illness. 
Second, avoid sharing food, utensils, cups and toothbrushes.  Germs can spread prior to knowing someone is sick, so make a habit of using your own items all the time.
Third, make sure you and your child’s immunizations are up to date. Vaccines including the flu shot prevent infectious illnesses from chickenpox to polio to measles. 
And finally, if you or your child do get sick, cover your cough or sneeze with a tissue or sleeve. Coughing or sneezing into the air or your hand increases the chance that someone else will breathe or come in contact with your infected germs. 
So wash up, be mindful of not sharing, get immunized and cover up so you and your family stay healthy!

Robin Strecker RN
Child Care Health Consultant, Kids First
p: 970.920.5326

Coaching Corner

As you begin your new school year, we want you to be aware of updated Pyramid resources that are available to you.  All of these resources are available through The National Center for Pyramid Model Innovations (NCPMI). That website is https://challengingbehavior.cbcs.usf.edu/index.html . The visuals have been modernized and we think they have made great improvements. The Resource Library  is where you will find all of the articles, handouts, visuals, scripted stories, videos, Backpack Connection Series for parents , research and lots more.  Here are some examples of the updated materials: