Zero to Three

Last updated
Zero to Three
Founded1977
Type 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation
Location
  • United States
Executive Director
Matthew Melmed
Website zerotothree.org

Zero to Three National Center for Infants Toddlers and Families, formerly the National Center for Infants, Toddlers, and Families, commonly known as Zero to Three and stylized as ZERO TO THREE, is a US nonprofit organization focused on the healthy development of babies and toddlers from birth to three years old. The organization participates in policy advocacy, provides professional development for early childhood professionals, and operates programs related to children's health and welfare in a number of states. Zero to Three also publishes a variety of resources for parents, [1] professionals and policy makers, most notably the DC:0–5™ Diagnostic Classification of Mental Health and Developmental Disorders of Infancy and Early Childhood. The organization's research is widely cited in the field of early childhood development and infant health. [2]

Contents

Programs

Healthy Steps

Zero To Three's Healthy Steps program is an evidence based model that places development experts in pediatric primary care sites in order to provide screening and connect families to social services outside of the typical focus of medical professionals. [3] The program offers practical support designed to address social and psychological needs of infants and their families, like identifying care options for a parent's history of trauma, or connecting families to stable housing and food. [4]

Under the Affordable Care Act, Healthy Steps was initially designated as an evidence based home visiting model by the Department of Health and Human Services. As of 2015, Healthy Steps no longer considers home visits to be its primary mode of delivering services. [5]

Safe Babies

Inspired by results from Florida's Infant and Young Child Mental Health Pilot Program, Zero To Three developed a framework for improving outcomes for families and children who were subject to the family court system. The result, Zero To Three's Safe Babies Court Team program, has been replicated in jurisdictions across the country. [6] Since its inception implementation of the program has grown rapidly, including at least 65 active sites across 30 states. More than 90% of children in the program are reunited with biological parents or placed permanently with kin, guardianships or adoptive homes within a year. [7]

Text4baby

In 2015, the National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition, including its Text4Baby program became part of Zero To Three. [8] Text4baby delivers evidence-backed tips for pregnant women and parents of young children. Since its founding in 2010, Text4Baby has served more than one million parents. [9] It is a partnership between Zero to Three and federal partners including White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Defense Military Health System, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. [10]

Diagnostic Manual

In 1987, Zero to Three convened a group of clinicians and researchers in the United States, Canada and Europe to develop a mental health classification system for infants and toddlers. After conducting literature reviews and considering case reports and clinical experiences, the task force members identified diagnostic categories and specific patterns of emotional and behavioral problems. [11] The first edition of the manual, DC:0–3 Diagnostic Classification of Mental Health and Developmental Disorders of Infancy and Early Childhood, was published in 1994; in 2021 it was expanded to include children from ages zero to five. [12]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Parenting</span> Process of raising a child

Parenting or child rearing promotes and supports the physical, emotional, social, spiritual and cognitive development of a child from infancy to adulthood. Parenting refers to the intricacies of raising a child and not exclusively for a biological relationship.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Infant</span> Very young offspring of humans

An infant or baby is the very young offspring of human beings. Infant is a formal or specialised synonym for the common term baby. The terms may also be used to refer to juveniles of other organisms. A newborn is, in colloquial use, an infant who is only hours, days, or up to one month old. In medical contexts, a newborn or neonate is an infant in the first 28 days after birth; the term applies to premature, full term, and postmature infants.

The diagnostic category pervasive developmental disorders (PDD), as opposed to specific developmental disorders (SDD), was a group of disorders characterized by delays in the development of multiple basic functions including socialization and communication. It was defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), and the International Classification of Diseases (ICD).

Attachment disorder is a broad term intended to describe disorders of mood, behavior, and social relationships arising from unavailability of normal socializing care and attention from primary caregiving figures in early childhood. Such a failure would result from unusual early experiences of neglect, abuse, abrupt separation from caregivers between three months and three years of age, frequent change or excessive numbers of caregivers, or lack of caregiver responsiveness to child communicative efforts resulting in a lack of basic trust. A problematic history of social relationships occurring after about age three may be distressing to a child, but does not result in attachment disorder.

Reactive attachment disorder (RAD) is described in clinical literature as a severe disorder that can affect children, although these issues do occasionally persist into adulthood. RAD is characterized by markedly disturbed and developmentally inappropriate ways of relating socially in most contexts. It can take the form of a persistent failure to initiate or respond to most social interactions in a developmentally appropriate way—known as the "inhibited form". In the DSM-5, the "disinhibited form" is considered a separate diagnosis named "disinhibited attachment disorder".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Attachment theory</span> Psychological ethological theory about human relationships

An attachment theory is a psychological, evolutionary, and ethological theory concerning relationships between humans. The most important tenet is that young children need to develop a relationship with at least one primary caregiver for their survival, and for them to develop a healthy social and emotional functioning. The theory was formulated by psychiatrist and psychoanalyst John Bowlby (1907–1990).

Stanley Greenspan was an American child psychiatrist and clinical professor of Psychiatry, Behavioral Science, and Pediatrics at George Washington University Medical School. He was best known for developing the floortime approach for attempting to treat children with autistic spectrum disorders and developmental disabilities.

Selma Fraiberg (1918–1981) was an American child psychoanalyst, author and social worker.

A delayed milestone, which is also known as a developmental delay, refers to a situation where a child does not reach a particular developmental milestone at the expected age. Developmental milestones refer to a collection of indicators that a child is anticipated to reach as they grow older.

Early childhood intervention (ECI) is a support and educational system for very young children who have been victims of, or who are at high risk for child abuse and/or neglect as well as children who have developmental delays or disabilities. Some states and regions have chosen to focus these services on children with developmental disabilities or delays, but Early Childhood Intervention is not limited to children with these disabilities.

Early Head Start is a federally funded community-based program for low-income families with pregnant women, infants, and toddlers up to age 3. It is a program that came out of Head Start. The program was designed in 1994 by an Advisory Committee on Services for Families with Infants and Toddlers formed by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. "In addition to providing or linking families with needed services—medical, mental health, nutrition, and education—Early Head Start can provide a place for children to experience consistent, nurturing relationships and stable, ongoing routines."

Erikson Institute is a graduate school in child development in downtown Chicago, Illinois. It is named for the noted psychoanalyst and developmental psychologist, Erik Erikson.

Infant mental health is the study of mental health as it applies to infants, toddlers, and their families. The field investigates optimal social and emotional development of infants and their families in the first three years of life. Cognitive development, and the development of motor skills may also be considered part of the infant mental health picture. While the interest in the mental life of infants in the context of their early relationships can be traced back to the work of Anna Freud, John Bowlby, and Donald Winnicott in Great Britain, infant mental health as a movement of public health policy, empirical research, and change in clinical practice paralleled both that of the women's movement and of increased awareness of the prevalence and consequences of child abuse and neglect during the 1960s and 1970s. The vast literature that has emerged since the field's origins has been reviewed in several key texts. Basic principles of infant mental health evaluation and treatment involve consideration of at least three patients: parent(s), child, and their relationship, while keeping in mind the rapid and formative development of the brain and mind in the first years of life.

Charles H. Zeanah Jr. is a child and adolescent psychiatrist who is a member of the council (Board) of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP).

Attachment-based therapy applies to interventions or approaches based on attachment theory, originated by John Bowlby. These range from individual therapeutic approaches to public health programs to interventions specifically designed for foster carers. Although attachment theory has become a major scientific theory of socioemotional development with one of the broadest, deepest research lines in modern psychology, attachment theory has, until recently, been less clinically applied than theories with far less empirical support. This may be partly due to lack of attention paid to clinical application by Bowlby himself and partly due to broader meanings of the word 'attachment' used amongst practitioners. It may also be partly due to the mistaken association of attachment theory with the pseudo-scientific interventions misleadingly known as attachment therapy. The approaches set out below are examples of recent clinical applications of attachment theory by mainstream attachment theorists and clinicians and are aimed at infants or children who have developed or are at risk of developing less desirable, insecure attachment styles or an attachment disorder.

Mental disorders diagnosed in childhood can be neurodevelopmental, emotional, or behavioral disorders. These disorders negatively impact the mental and social wellbeing of a child, and children with these disorders require support from their families and schools. Childhood mental disorders often persist into adulthood. These disorders are usually first diagnosed in infancy, childhood, or adolescence, as laid out in the DSM-5 and in the ICD-11.

Reflective Parenting is a theory of parenting developed from the work of psychoanalyst Peter Fonagy and his colleagues at the Tavistock Clinic in London. Fonagy introduced the concept of “reflective functioning”, which is defined as the ability to imagine mental states in self and others. Through this capacity for reflection, we develop the ability to understand our own behavioral responses and the responses of others as a meaningful attempt to communicate those inner mental states. As Fonagy describes it, “reflective function is the… uniquely human capacity to make sense of each other”.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daniel Schechter</span> American neuroscientist

Daniel S. Schechter is an American and Swiss psychiatrist known for his clinical work and research on intergenerational transmission or "communication" of violent trauma and related psychopathology involving parents and very young children. His published work in this area following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York of September 11, 2001 led to a co-edited book entitled "September 11: Trauma and Human Bonds" (2003) and additional original articles with clinical psychologist Susan Coates that were translated into multiple languages and remain among the first accounts of 9/11 related loss and trauma described by mental health professionals who also experienced the attacks and their aftermath Schechter observed that separation anxiety among infants and young children who had either lost or feared loss of their caregivers triggered posttraumatic stress symptoms in the surviving caregivers. These observations validated his prior work on the adverse impact of family violence on the early parent-child relationship, formative social-emotional development and related attachment disturbances involving mutual dysregulation of emotion and arousal. This body of work on trauma and attachment has been cited by prominent authors in the attachment theory, psychological trauma, developmental psychobiology and neuroscience literatures

The Diagnostic Classification of Mental Health and Developmental Disorders of Infancy and Early Childhood-Revised is a developmentally based diagnostic manual that provides clinical criteria for categorizing mental health and developmental disorders in infants and toddlers. It is organized into a five-part axis system. The book has been translated into several languages, and its model is utilized for the assessment of children up to five years of age.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">First 5 Los Angeles</span>

First 5 Los Angeles is a nonprofit child-advocacy organization that is part of the First 5 California Children and Families Act.

References

  1. ↑ Nagourney, Adam (1999-04-22). "LIBRARY/SITES FOR NEW PARENTS; ZERO TO THREE". The New York Times . Retrieved 2024-03-13.
  2. ↑ Maldonado-Durán, Martin; Helmig, Linda; Moody, Chris; Fonagy, Peter; Fulz, Jim (2003-07-14). "The Zero-to-Three diagnostic classification in an infant mental health clinic: Its usefulness and challenges". Infant Mental Health Journal. 24 (4): 378–397. doi:10.1002/imhj.10063.
  3. ↑ Clark, Maggie (2020-04-13). "Solution to Maternal Health Crisis Must Center on Medicaid". Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy Center for Children and Families . Retrieved 2024-03-21.
  4. ↑ Chatterjee, Rhitu (2023-11-29). "How to break the cycle of childhood trauma? Help a baby's parents". Morning Edition . National Public Radio . Retrieved 2024-03-21.
  5. ↑ "Models". National Home Visiting Resource Center. 2023-11-09. Retrieved 2024-03-23.
  6. ↑ Casanueva, Cecilia; Williams, Jason; Kluckman, Marianne; Harris, Sarah; Goldman Fraser, Jennifer (2024). "The effect of the ZERO TO THREE Infant-Toddler Court Teams on type and time of exits from out-of-home care: A new study ten years after the first competing risks analysis". Children and Youth Services Review. 156. doi:10.1016/j.childyouth.2023.107327. ISSN   0190-7409.
  7. ↑ Macias, Martin (2021-04-28). "Dependency Court Programs Focus On Babies' Health". The Imprint. Retrieved 2024-03-18.
  8. ↑ "Text4baby moves to Zero to Three" (PDF). Oregon Tex4Baby. Oregon Health Authority. 2015. p. 2. Retrieved 2024-03-16.
  9. ↑ Feder Ostrov, Barbara (2016-06-23). "The Challenge Of Taking Health Apps Beyond The Well-Heeled". National Public Radio .
  10. ↑ "Text4Baby". Administration for Children and Families. Retrieved 2024-03-16.
  11. ↑ Egger, Helen; Emde, Robert (2011). "Developmentally sensitive diagnostic criteria for mental health disorders in early childhood: the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders-IV, the research diagnostic criteria-preschool age, and the diagnostic classification of mental health and developmental disorders of infancy and early childhood-revised". American Psychologist. 66 (2): 95–106. doi:10.1037/a0021026. PMC   3064438 . PMID   21142337.
  12. ↑ "DC:0–5™ Manual and Training". Zero to Three. Retrieved 2024-03-13.
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