Pennsylvania Association for Infant Mental Health’s Endorsement for Culturally Sensitive, Relationship-focused Practice Promoting Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health:
Competency Guidelines®​

The Competency Guidelines® create a shared framework or "map" for professional development across all sectors and disciplines of the infant, early childhood and family field across the full spectrum of service delivery, including promotion, prevention, treatment and intervention, and macro.  Additionally, they outline the requirements for Endorsement® by guiding one's development of knowledge, skills & best practices, gained through specialized experiences (education, work, in-service training, and reflective supervision/consultation).

They are a nationally recognized set of competencies that help define best practice and guides professional growth.  All professionals who have experience working with or on behalf of infants, toddlers, young children, parents and/or caregivers and meet the educational, work, training, and reflective supervision/consultation requirements as specified at each level are encouraged to seek endorsement. 

Determine your Endorsement Pathway:

You can view the Endorsement Pathways by using the following links to help  you to determine what pathway best fits your scope of work:
As you explore the pathway that fits best for your scope of work, please consider the following points.   
  • Family Associate categories are primarily for professionals who have a promotion scope of work with either the 0-3 or 3-6 population. 
  • Family Specialist categories are for professionals who generally have a prevention scope of work with either the 0-3 or 3-6 population. 
  • Mental Health Specialist categories are for professionals who have an intervention/clinical scope of work with young children (0-3 or 3-6) and their family. 
  • Mental Health Mentor categories are for professionals who are in macro level leadership roles in clinical, research/faculty or policy scopes of work.