Early Childhood Centers
Early Childhood Mental Health (ECMH) Services
Young children with social-emotional challenges often demonstrate frustrating and bewildering behaviors that are resistant to intervention. Normal milestones, such as looking at a parent with interest and joy, joint attention to objects, and playing with other children appropriately, may seem unattainable for these children. Because PEP believes that parents are a child’s first and best teacher, PEP Early Childhood Mental Health (ECMH) Services are designed to help parents better understand the needs of their young children. By providing support to the child and family, PEP ECMH is able to help our community’s youngest children successfully learn and grow.
How the Program Works
PEP ECMH is designed for young children age birth through 3 who are experiencing, or are at risk of, serious social-emotional or behavioral challenges. Many have additional difficulties such as developmental delays, including communication delays, and/or a diagnosis along the autism spectrum.
Through the program, parents are invited to be an active participant in support of their child. The program is relationship-based and individualized to meet the needs of each child and family. It incorporates elements of Conscious Discipline by Dr. Becky Bailey, Incredible Years by Dr. Carolyn Webster-Stratton, and is built upon the foundation of a program model developed by the Regional Intervention Program (RIP) in Nashville through a National Institute of Mental Health grant. This service model incorporates behavior management, language development, and emotional coping and support strategies into a practical series of sessions designed to help families grow stronger.
Funded by prevention dollars, PEP’s ECMH program combines center-based activities with home and community visits that involve both the child and family. An Individual Service Plan is developed and tailored for each child and family enabling services to be provided at the center, at home, or in any other setting where the family requests support.
Staffing
Staff includes resource consultants (staff with a minimum of a master’s degree with backgrounds in both mental health and education), classroom staff to support center-based activities, and parent coaches who have completed an ECC program themselves. Support staff includes a program coordinator (in a school, this is parallel to the school principal), a clinical supervisor (in a school, this professional would be known as the school psychologist), speech language pathologist, and a nurse.
Accessing Services
The program is offered at two locations:
April Shepherd
Clinical Associate
Early Childhood Center – East
1340 Professor Road
South Euclid, Ohio 44124
440-573-2024
440-573-2033 (fax)
ashepherd@pepcleve.org
April Shepherd
Clinical Associate
Early Childhood Center – West
17415 Northwood Avenue
Lakewood, Ohio 44107
216-658-7120
216-658-7135 (fax)
ashepherd@pepcleve.org