Zero to Three (ZTT) mission is to ensure that all babies and toddlers have a strong start in life. One of ZTT’s goals is to increase the size, diversity, quality, and accessibility of the infant and early childhood mental health (IECMH) clinical workforce. With support from the Perigee Fund, ZTT partners with other organizations to strengthen the field in the following ways:  

• Leadership development to guide further diversity, growth, and sustainability 
• “Table Setting” to create community consensus toward a cohesive field
• Policy and systems innovation to reduce barriers and increase support for the clinical workforce, and 
• Core capacity development to strengthen the ability to address current and emerging needs in the field. 

In 2021, ZTT partnered with Root Cause to:

• Identify a cross-sector group of stakeholders who can bring diverse, current, and innovative perspectives to addressing the shared “pain points” contributing to a lack of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the IECMH clinical workforce
• Design and implement four half-day virtual convenings over the course of one year to:
  • Articulate a shared comprehensive position on the barriers and possible solutions to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion in the IECMH clinical workforce.

Outline recommendations for early action steps (e.g. short-term, low cost/resource with highest return) that can be shared with the field. (These steps can be pursued independently and/or in collaboration with other stakeholders within or outside the group.)

Our work with ZTT was organized into the following three phases:

• Phase I: Planning and Design (April-August 2021)
• Phase II: Convening Series Implementation (September 2021-March 2022)
• Phase III: Finalize the Action Plan (March-April 2022)

In Phase I, we worked together to:

• Obtain stakeholder feedback to inform the convening series design
• Produce a summary of learnings, and 
• Produce an overall design plan for the convening series. 

In Phase II, beginning in Fall 2021, infant and early childhood mental health stakeholders came together through a series of convenings facilitated by Root Cause to discuss how to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion in the IECMH clinical workforce.

In late 2021, Zero to Three and Root Cause agreed to extend the timeline of the project in order to add another convening session and form 3-4 smaller action groups. Root Cause will synthesize recommendations from the small action groups as part of the design process for the final Convening, which will be held in early March 2022. Based on the action steps agreed upon through the convenings and smaller action groups, Root Cause will develop the final report of recommendations on how infant and early childhood mental health stakeholders can increase diversity, equity, and inclusion in the IECMH clinical workforce.