CoE Equity Toolkit
Equity is a central component of IECMHC. Every individual who is part of the IECMHC system has an important role to play in battling racism and promoting fair, positive, and equitable learning experiences for children and families. The new IECMHC Racial Equity Toolkit is a collection of videos, tools, and resources that can help consultation systems leaders and all IECMHC practitioners build capacity in understanding race and systemic racism, bias, and culturally responsive practice and meaningfully embed equity in their programs and practice. Each resource includes accompanying discussion questions that can guide reflection of the central issues.
These resources can facilitate full implementation of the recently revised IECMHC Competencies, which include an explicit focus on equity across each domain.
The toolkit has two parts: “Start Here” and “Dig Deeper.” The “Start Here” section includes a collection of resources that systems leaders, supervisors, and consultants can use to begin their work using the toolkit; the “Dig Deeper” section includes an additional set of resources that can facilitate deeper learning and continued exploration of racism and using IECMHC and early childhood systems to combat it. The toolkit will be a “living toolkit”, such that new resources will be added on an ongoing basis.
Systems leaders and supervisors can use these resources in supervision or reflective meetings with staff and move through each resource, reading, video, or podcast together.
Start Here
Tool: Equity in Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation Webinar Series
Type of Resource: Webinar
Time Required: 2 to 2 ½ hours
Questions for reflection: Where have you seen bias, differential treatment, or oppression of Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and other children of color and families show up in the early childhood settings in which you work at the individual or relational level? Where have you seen it show up in programmatic policy or at the systems level? In what ways do you respond to instances of implicit and/or explicit bias by early childhood educators? What of the information shared was new to you? What struck you most deeply? In what ways will it inform your work?
Tool: Creating Anti-Racist Early Childhood Spaces
Type of Resource: Webinar/Video
Time Required: 1 hour
Questions for reflection: After watching, consider your role in actively creating anti-racist early childhood spaces. What could you do differently? What barriers do you think may get in your way and how can you overcome them?
Type of Resource: Peer Reviewed Article. You may access the document through your institution's library (if applicable) or you can request the document from the authors on Research Gate.
Time Required: 30 minutes
Questions for reflection: In what ways can you build a strong consultative alliance with educators you work with? How can the consultative alliance improve outcomes for children, especially children of color?
Tool: Pyramid Model Equity Coaching Guide
Type of Resource: Coaching Guide
Questions for reflection: After reviewing the resources, consider how you can utilize the tools in your practice.
Tool: Cultural and Linguistic Competence in Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation
Type of Resource: Training module
Time Required: 90 minutes
Questions for reflection: This training module has questions embedded throughout that you are encouraged to reflect on and respond to.
Tool: PBIS Cultural Responsiveness Field Guide for Trainers and Coaches
Type of Resource: Practice Guide
Time Required: 60 minutes
Questions for reflection: Consider how this field guide may be relevant and useful in your coaching /consultation. How can you use this guide to improve awareness of racism and bias in learning settings?
Tool: Diversity Informed Tenets (Harris Foundation)
Type of Resource: Website and pdf document
Time Required: 10 minutes
Questions for reflection: How have you implemented these tenets into your consultation? Can you name a specific example for each tenet? Is there one or more of the tenets that you find it difficult to adhere to? What makes it difficult?
Tool: Consultative Stance: Basis, Basics and Bias, June 2018
Type of Resource: Video Clips
Time Required: 4 total videos –each from 33 minutes – 102 minutes to view
Questions for reflection: For each video you watch, identify one concrete strategy or idea that you are taking away. How will you implement that idea or strategy into your daily practice? What supports will you need to be successful?
Type of Resource: Policy paper
Time Required: 30 minutes
Questions for reflection: How do inequities in early childhood systems lead to the “preschool to prison pipeline” as discussed in this paper? How can effective mental health consultation interrupt inequities?
Type of Resource: Peer Reviewed Article. You may access the document through your institution's library (if applicable) or you can request the document from the authors on Research Gate.
Time Required: 30 minutes
Questions for reflection: Are there any of the recommended practices (reflective questioning, creating a holding environment, raising issues of race and gender, cultivating cultural awareness, exploring contextual influences) that are difficult for you? How are you working to develop your skills in these practices?
Type of Resource: Research Brief
Time Required: 30 minutes
Questions for reflection: Do the findings shared in this article surprise you? Why or why not? How might mental health consultation be used to interrupt bias and disparities in discipline?
Tool: School Suspensions are an Adult Behavior (Rosemarie Allen, 2016)
Type of Resource: Video
Time Required: 12 minutes
Questions for reflection: What is the role of infant and early childhood mental health consultation in shifting adult behavior and practice as it relates to suspension? What additional work in developing your consultation skills is needed for you to be able to engage in reflective conversations that help educators see their own implicit biases and how those biases impact their view of children’s behavior?
Tool: Preschool Expulsions and the Role of Implicit Bias - Part 1
Type of Resource: Video
Time Required: 3 minutes
Questions for reflection: After watching the video with your colleagues, discuss what resonated with you from Dr. Allan's words. What do you want to know more about?
Tool: Preschool Expulsions and the Role of Implicit Bias - Part 2
Type of Resource: Video
Time Required: 3 minutes
Questions for reflection: After watching the video with your colleagues, engage in a discussion about implicit bias and how you have seen it show up in early childhood environments.
Tool: Race Forward: Systemic Oppression Video Series
Type of Resource: Videos
Time Required: 10 minutes
Questions for reflection: After watching, consider the impacts that components of structural racism have on young children. How do you see it show up in the spaces where you work and serve children and families?
Type of Resource: Practice Guide
Time Required: 30 minutes
Questions for reflection: Consider how these tools may be relevant and useful in your coaching /consultation.
Tool: Kirwen Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity: Implicit Bias Training Modules
Type of Resource: Training
Time Required: 30 minutes/module x 4 modules
Questions for reflection: Complete these modules individually and then discuss your learning with your team.
Type of Resource: Self-paced, online training
Time Required: 18 minutes to watch
Questions for reflection: After watching this video with your team, engage in a conversation about your team's "defaults." In times of stress or turbulence, what do you all default to? Is it the same or different? How can you interrupt those implicit defaults?
Dig Deeper
The Center of Excellence has created a Searchable Evidence Database for IECMHC that summarizes the current status of the peer reviewed literature on IECMHC. You can search articles using a range of criteria, including whether the article analyzed differences in IECMHC access and outcomes based on race/ethnicity. There is much more research needed on advancing equity through IECMHC! Please view the Future Directions for Research in the Evidence Synthesis for recommendations and proposed next steps. Feel free to request Technical Assistance if you would like consultation as you design an equity-focused research or evaluation project.
Tool: Let's Talk About Race
Type of Resource: Video
Time Required: 18 minutes to watch
Questions for reflection: After watching, reflect on your own racial culturalization. What were you taught about discussing race? How does that culturalization impact your work today?
Audience: All
Tool: A Lesson In Humility: Diving into Anti-Racist Early Education Practices and Policies
Type of Resource: Podcast
Time Required: 1 hour to listen
Questions for reflection: After listening, discuss your thoughts with your team around the following: During the podcast, there are multiple mentions of traits of dominant culture that lead to inequities in early care and education. What are some of those traits? How have you seen them lead to inequitable treatment and outcomes for children, especially Children of Color?
Audience: Consultants, Practitioners
Tool: Justice from the Streets to the Early Childhood Classroom
Type of Resource: Webinar
Time Required: 90 minutes to watch
Questions for reflection: After watching, consider what concrete steps / actions you can take to promote more equitable early childhood spaces.
Audience: Researcher, Policy, Consultants, Practitioners
Tool: Racial Justice, Equity, and the Role of Child Care
Type of Resource: Webinar
Time Required: 1 hour to watch
Questions for reflection: What are some of the inequities inherent in the way early care and education systems operate in the US? How has the COVID pandemic worsened those inequities?
Audience: Researcher, Policy, Consultants
Tool: Advancing Equity in Early Childhood Education Position Statement NAEYC
Type of Resource: Position Statement
Time Required: 45 minute read
Questions for reflection: Review the sections applicable to your position and consider how to apply the recommendations into your daily work.
Audience: All
Type of Resource: Report
Time Required: varies
Questions for reflection: Use the reflective questions and activities embedded throughout the document to reflect on your learning.
Audience: Researcher, Policy, Consultants, Practitioners
Tool: Unequal Access: Barriers to Early Childhood Education for Boys of Color
Type of Resource: Issue Brief
Time Required: 30 minute read
Questions for reflection: After reading the article, consider the barriers to access that exist to high quality early childhood education to Boys of Color. What actions can you take in your role to overcome those barriers?
Audience: Policy, Funders, Consultants
Type of Resource: Report
Time Required: 2 hour read
Questions for reflection: How do different forms of inequities take shape in the settings in which you work? How can you work to address each of the areas discussed in the report in your work? How can systems leaders implement change via ECMHC systems to address these inequities?
Audience: All
Type of Resource: Brief
Time Required: 45 minute read
Questions for reflection: Read and discuss as a team what concepts and ideas seem relevant to your role.
Audience: Consultants, Researchers
Tool: Scene on Radio: Season Two - Seeing White
Type of Resource: Podcast
Time Required: Varies - 30 minutes to 1 hour listen per episode
Questions for reflection: After listening to each episode, engage in a reflective conversation with a peer. What new information did you learn? What are you wondering about? What do you want to learn more about?
Audience: All
Tool: The House We Live In: Race—The Power of an Illusion
Type of Resource: Video
Time Required: 56 minutes to watch
Questions for reflection: After watching, reflect with colleagues on the following question: "What new insights are you taking away about how racism is integrated into systems after watching this video?"
Audience: All
Tool: Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable
Type of Resource: Video
Time Required: 11 minutes to watch
Questions for reflection: After watching, journal your thoughts about what it means to be uncomfortable and speak the hard truths when necessary.
Audience: All
Tool: Having Conversations about Race, Bias, and Equity
Type of Resource: Webinar
Time Required: 1 hour to watch
Questions for reflection: Watch this video with your team. After watching, engage in a discussion about what you learned. How do you see this showing up in your work?
Audience: All
Tool: How to Overcome Our Biases: Walk Boldly Towards Them
Type of Resource: Video
Time Required: One, 1-hour module
Questions for reflection: Complete the course individually and discuss your learning and actions steps with your team.
Audience: All
Tool: State of the Science: Implicit Bias Review
Type of Resource: Report
Time Required: 2 hour read
Questions for reflection: What are some of the ways you have noticed implicit bias in action in yourself? In others? In your work? What were the most useful strategies and how could you use them in consultation?
Audience:
Tool: Being Anti-Racist
Type of Resource: Webpage
Time Required: 10 minutes to read
Questions for reflection: Review the content and resources included. Use the "Let's Reflect" questions at the end of the page to reflect with a colleague.
Audience: All
Tool: The Urgency of Intersectionality
Type of Resource: Video
Time Required: 19 minutes to watch
Questions for reflection: At the end of the video, the speaker states "If we can't see a problem, we can't fix a problem." How did this video help you to see the problem of racism and intersectionality through a new lens?
Audience: All
Tool: We Need to Talk About an Injustice
Type of Resource: Video
Time Required: 23 minutes to watch
Questions for reflection: After watching, reflect on what Bryan shared about how the justice system works in the United States. Is this information new to you? How does this add to your understanding of the "preschool to prison pipeline"?
Audience: Consultants, Practitioners, Policy
Tool: Race Forward: Systemic Oppression Video Series
Type of Resource: Videos
Time Required: 10 minutes to watch entire series
Questions for reflection: After watching, consider the impacts that components of structural racism have on young children. How do you see it show up in the spaces where you work and serve children and families?
Audience: All