From the Editors: Issue Vol. 27 No. 1 | Winter 2019
This Winter (2019) edition of WAIMH Perspectives in Infant Mental Health includes reviewed and accepted papers since the Fall (2018) edition. Each paper calls attention to and consideration of what WAIMH members and allied infant mental health colleagues around the world are thinking, doing, and writing about.
Before introducing the papers in this edition more fully, we want to update you about the editorial team as well as two Perspectives initiatives that are being conducted in collaboration with the WAIMH office staff: a) a pending Perspectives in Infant Mental Health WAIMH member survey; and b) the online availability of past editions of The Signal.
For newcomers to WAIMH, The Signal was the former name of Perspectives. Furthermore, Emily Fenichel, named The Signal after an international contest. At the time Emily was Associate Director of Zero to Three and was also the Editor of the Zero to Three Journal from 1992 – 2006.
The current WAIMH Perspectives Editorial team
This issue marks the beginning of a transitional editorial team. As of January (2019), Maree Foley shifted her role from Assistant Editor to Editor of Perspectives. During the 2019 transitional year, Deborah Weatherston, the previous Editor, has agreed to serve as Associate Editor for 2019, and Hiram Fitzgerald has agreed to serve in the same capacity until June 30, 2019. At this time, he will retire from his professional career and extraordinary long service to WAIMH. Minna Sorsa continues in her role as Production Editor.
During this transition year, we are seeking two people who are interested in joining the editorial team as Associate Editors. If you are interested and want to know more about what this role entails, please contact Maree Foley (maree.foley@xtra.co.nz).
WAIMH Perspectives in Infant Mental Health survey
In the near future all WAIMH members will be invited to participate in an e-mail survey about future directions for Perspectives in Infant Mental Health. Over the past few years our WAIMH publication has evolved into an open source online resource that includes both regular posts as well as an online quarterly publication. Given these recent changes, we are keen to hear from you about your ideas and experiences about the future of Perspectives. Thank you in advance for your participation.
Previous Signal papers available online on the WAIMH website
Over the past year, Minna Sorsa (WAIMH Senior Administrator) and Sari Miettinen (WAIMH Administrative Assistant) have been tirelessly uploading previous paper copies of The Signal and Perspectives into an electronic format. Minna and Sari are continuously working to keep the Perspectives website updated and over time plan to publish all previous issues of The Signal and Perspectives, onto the WAIMH website.
This Winter (2019) Edition
This Winter (2019) edition begins with a Presidential Address by Kai von Klitzing (University of Leipzig, Germany) President of WAIMH. In this address Kai summarizes a commentary from Gaskins et al. (2017) who wrote a chapter, “Implications for policy and practice” focusing on cultural bias in the field of attachment and early childhood. Kai then provides his perspective, anchored in WAIMH’s ongoing work to headline infant rights across multiple levels, from the family and community, through to national and multilateral global commitments. The Presidential address is followed by the WAIMH Executive Director Address by Kaija Puura. Kaija reflects on her initial months in the role and highlights its capacity for membership connection and global outreach.
Next is a paper about The Colorado Association for Infant Mental Health (CoAIMH) by Board President, Ous H. Badwan (Psy.D., M.F.T.). CoAIMH has been a WAIMH Affiliate since 2002 and has been an official affiliate of The Alliance for the Advancement of Infant Mental Health (the Alliance) since 2010. This report reflects on their mission, vision, and a recent Alliance-CoAIMH initiative; hosting the Third Annual Reflective Supervision and Consultation (RS/C) in 2018. The paper also reports on the Colorado Foundations of Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health for Early Childhood Professionals and Partners (Colorado Foundations). This is a CoAIMH initiative; a 9-module foundational course, designed to support training and competence in Colorado’s infant and early childhood mental health workforce. Finally, this paper highlights the diversity of professional membership within affiliates with the majority of their members working in non-clinical settings with families/other caregivers and young children.
The CoAIMH paper is followed by a paper entitled: The Surgeon and the Baby. This paper is a personal reflection from Heinz Rode, a paediatric surgeon. Heinz is an Emeritus Professor, at the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital and University of Cape Town, South Africa. Heinz reflects on an over 40-year career as a paediatric surgeon, caring for sick babies and their families. He identifies, with compassion and integrity, four primary phases of his interactions with the baby and family: (1) Meeting the sick neonate and family; (2) Establishing a diagnosis and prognosis; (3) The neonate as the patient with an organ to be operated upon [“Baby Joe the patient” becomes Baby Joe as a “liver”]; and, (4) The aftermath and the future for baby and family.
Next is an article centered on a response by a reader of Perspectives, Grace Whitney. Grace, responded to the editors regarding a previously published article by Wendy Bunston: How Refuge provides refuge to Infants: Exploring how ‘refuge’ is provided to infants entering crisis accommodation with their mothers after fleeing family violence (Perspectives in Infant Mental Health, Vol.26. No. 4, Fall, 2018). As a result of this dialogue, Maree Foley, Deborah Weatherston and Grace Whitney wrote a short article that aims to contribute to the conversation about infants and their families who are homeless.
What follows is a Featured Report that we hope will be of interest to our readers who are engaged with the area of infants and homelessness. We provide a link to the following report: Hogg, S., Haynes, A., Baradon, T., and Cuthbert, C. (2015). All Babies Count report, An unstable start: Spotlight on homelessness. NSPCC in partnership with the Anna Freud Centre, London, UK. We also provide a link to a slide presentation, oriented towards practitioners, which summarizes key findings from this report.
Next is a previously posted paper from our Signal archive: “The era of using video for observation and intervention in infant mental health”, by Nicole Guédeney and Antoine Guédeney. It was published in The Signal, 06/15/2010. The paper begins with a short history of the work of the early “cinema” pioneers. It then reviews the role of video in providing a new lens on infant development and early interactions. It concludes that the use of home videos has benefited preventive work with infants and families.
What follows is a report for the WAIMH Affiliates Council by Anna Huber (WAIMH Affiliate Council Chair) and Jane Barlow (WAIMH Affiliate Council Representative). They report on a recent initiative within the Council which is to establish a working group to help progress the development of a set of guidelines for local infant mental health groups who seek to become WAIMH Affiliates.
Finally, we have re-posted the news from the WAIMH Office concerning the update on the online Signal archive, available to all on the WAIMH website: Read and browse past issues of Perspectives in Infant Mental Health. Currently, issues can now be accessed online, with past issues dating back to 2007 currently available by following this link: https://perspectives.waimh.org/perspectives-archive/
In addition, past articles are also available online in text format, which in turn can be shared: https://perspectives.waimh.org/
As the WAIMH Perspectives editorial team, we thank each person for their interesting and thoughtful contributions. We welcome submissions from the field that challenge the way we think about infants, families, culture, and community, and offer fresh perspectives on policy, research, and practice. As always, we invite comments in response to what is published in WAIMH Perspectives in Infant Mental Health.
Maree Foley, Editor
Deborah J. Weatherston, Associate Editor
Hiram Fitzgerald, Associate Editor
WAIMH Perspectives in Infant Mental Health: Vol. 27 No. 1 | Winter 2019
Authors
Maree Foley (Switzerland),
Deborah J Weatherston (USA) and
Hiram Fitzgerald (USA)
