Birth to Five Navigator
Your resource for building strong connections through Early Relational Health.
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Who Benefits From This Website?
All professionals in the early relational health workforce, such as child care providers, early educators, early intervention providers, child protective workers, mobile response specialists, clinicians, home visitors, family support professionals, doulas, community health workers, and any other professional who supports early relationships. In short, everyone!
Why Explore Our Resources?
To learn from specialists about your role in promoting early relationships and supporting early development; to receive support in your work with families of infants and very young children; and to make connections and referrals with other early relational health professionals.
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Finding Your Bearings
What is Birth to Five Practice?
Birth to Five Practice is an umbrella term to capture the practices used by multidisciplinary professionals who work with expectant families and families of infants, toddlers, preschoolers and young children.
What is Early Relational Health?
According to the organization, Nurture Connection, “Early Relational Health is the state of emotional well-being that grows from the positive emotional connection that babies and toddlers and their parents and caregivers experience with each other through everyday moments of caregiving and nurturing.
Emotional connection — which comes from strong, positive, and nurturing relationships and can be restored after challenges or adversities — is fundamental for young children’s growth and development. Parents and extended family also experience joy, comfort, and meaning through positive activities like talking, playing, reading aloud, and singing together. These enduring relationships protect children and adults from the harmful effects of stress.” Head here for more information: nurtureconnection.org
What is the Professional Formation Center for the Early Relational Health Workforce?
The Professional Formation Center for the Early Relational Health Workforce (PFC) at Montclair State University is the first of its kind in the nation, state-wide system of access to professional formation, coaching, and consultation in early relational health and developmental education. The PFC also seeks to engage state systems responsible for supporting early family development and early childhood education to unite and align by understanding and implementing early relational health as the core practice and common ground of NJ’s maternal-infant, family support & early childhood system.
Chart your course here for more information: https://www.montclair.edu/center-for-autism-and-early-childhood-mental-health/staff/
What is Reflective Supervision/Consultation (RSC)?
Reflective Supervision/Consultation is a structured process where professionals come together to discuss their work, particularly focusing on the emotional and relational aspects of their practice. Reflective Supervision/Consultation is a space for guided reflection, where participants explore their thoughts, feelings, and beliefs, and how these may impact their interactions with others. The aim is to enhance self-awareness, deepen understanding of the work, and ultimately improve the quality of services provided.
What's New in the NJ ERH System?
Stay tuned! We will be linking to our Navigator Newsletter here!
What are the ‘ports of entry’ in Birth to Five Practice?
A ‘port of entry’ (Stern, 1995) is a presenting area of need or opportunity that may be used as a starting point for intervention.
In Birth to Five Practice, we navigate the work through the following four ports of entry: regulation, reflection, responsiveness, and resources.