First 5 Alabama

The mission of First 5 Alabama is to enhance healthy attachment relationships between children birth to age five and the adults who care for them through promotion, prevention, and intervention supports throughout Alabama's early childhood systems. Vision: All Alabama Children Thrive By Five The Alabama Association for Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health (AAIECMH) was formed in January 2017 and will operate under the name of First 5 Alabama. During this time, the AAIECMH became a licensed affiliate of the Alliance for the Advancement of Infant Mental Health®, a global organization that includes those states and countries whose infant mental health associations have licensed the use of the Competency Guidelines® and Endorsement® for Culturally Sensitive, Relationship-Focused Practice Promoting Infant Mental Health® under their associations’ names. Purpose and goals of the Association: • promote the healthy social, emotional, cognitive, and physical development of children from conception through five years of age through supportive and nurturing relationships; • facilitate interdisciplinary cooperation among individuals concerned with promoting conditions that will bring about the optimal development of infants and young children; • encourage the realization that infancy is a sensitive period in the psychosocial development of individuals and to promote education, research, and study of the effects of mental development during infancy on later normal and psychopathological development; and • promote the education, professional development, and Endorsement® of professionals across multiple disciplines to increase the supply of early childhood mental health consultants to enhance programs of care, intervention, and prevention of mental impairment in infancy and early childhood.