ONE bright, sunny afternoon, a group of friends gathered on the bank of a stream to have a picnic. They had just finished their preparations for lunch when someone shouted, 'There is a child out here in the center of the stream.' One of the men kicked off his shoes and ran into the river to rescue the child. Just as he got back to shore and put the child on dry land, someone else shouted, 'There's another child out there now.' The same man ran into the river for the second time and, out of breath, soon came back with the second child. Friends made sure that both children were dried off and covered with towels before finding them warm blankets.

The rescuer, who was just starting to take off his wet clothes, suddenly heard someone shout again, 'There's another child out there now.' Instead of rushing in for the third time, he said to his friends, 'Someone else go in this time.' And with that, wet clothes and all, he slipped on his sneakers and started to run up the path which went along the edge of the stream. The others asked, 'Where are you going?' The rescuer said, 'I'm going to run up around the bend and find out who is pushing those kids into the river.'*

Well-substantiated data increasingly emphasize that evidence-based practices and services, provided in early childhood, can prevent or lessen the severity of later more serious problems. Implementation of knowledge from infant mental health results in the amelioration of developmental and mental health risk. Training in infant mental health has been growing exponentially as the demand to meet the mental health needs of the youngest children in our society is finally being recognized with an emphasis on prevention and early intervention. In the United States, Canada, and internationally, there is a recognized need for more qualified professionals to provide evaluations, interventions, and services for very young children (ages 0-5).

It is important to emphasize that although the term "mental health" may seem to imply a negative connotation with emphasis on pathology and mental illness, infant mental health can be better understood as multidisciplinary, comprehensive, and strength based. Optimal development of a young child occurs in the context of a sensitive relationship with a primary caregiver or caregivers. Infants and families do not develop in isolation; families need access to information, quality care and education, and support services within their communities. These services require respect for cultural, language, and individual and family differences. The Zero to Three Infant Mental Health Task Force has defined infant mental health as an infant's ability to experience, regulate, and express emotions. With the secure base provided by close relationships with caring parents and other caregivers, infants learn to explore their environments leading to continued development and growth.

The articles in this special issue on Professional Training in Infant Mental Health emphasize the importance of relationships and a relationship-based approach for evaluation, intervention, and treatment of problems in early childhood. The articles further stress the key role of "reflective practice," involving reflective supervision as an important part of training and learning in order to facilitate problem solving and sensitively frame problematic situations. To implement reflective practice, some articles focus on gaining an understanding of the therapist's reaction to the situation or "use of self" as an important way to gain sensitivity and skill in doing infant-parent intervention and therapy. Emphasis is placed on the importance of cultural sensitivity and competency in doing this work, an area that has been well elaborated by others (Christensen, Emde, & Fleming, 2004). Other articles deal directly with clinical interventions illustrating a psychodynamic relationship-based approach for child-parent psychotherapy with an infant-parent dyad. One article focuses on the use of a relationship-based approach to effect change in the early intervention system, resulting in ways to provide safer and more nurturing environments for families within this system utilizing reflective practice.

Infant mental health professionals know that the early relationship experiences of parents or caregivers form the basis for all later relationships, healthy and abnormal. It is important to ensure that the infant's "voice" is heard in guiding infant mental health training. Emde, Bingham, and Harmon (1993) describe the infant mental health field as including a developmental perspective and being prevention oriented. Infants and toddlers learn about themselves and the world around them through the relationships they have with the people in their lives. Infants develop among families, friends, and community. Babies, who are made to feel loved and cherished, learn that they are lovable. They then grow up feeling good about themselves and develop friendships more easily. Those who do not grow up in supportive, loving environments develop more negative feelings about themselves. As elaborated by Donna Weston, an infant mental health specialist functions in a variety of different ways, including providing concrete assistance, emotional support, and/or advocacy to a parent and young child, performing relationship-based assessments, and carrying out child-parent psychotherapy. She directly addresses the previously noted confusion in the use of the term infant mental health and suggests that a common language is needed for the field to describe an infant mental health specialist as a clinician with training in a mental health discipline who has additional specialized training for work with troubled infant-parent relationships. Many mental health fields, including psychology, child psychiatry, social work, and counseling, are addressing controversial issues concerning how to provide and establish competencies for such training either within states or nationally. In 1997, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry established Practice Parameters for the Psychiatric Assessment of Infants and Toddlers (0-36 months), which describe the psychiatric assessment of infants and toddlers (essentially an "infant mental status") and support the growth of infant and toddler psychiatry as a growing field (Thomas, Benham, Gean et al., 1997). This group agrees with other disciplines that understanding emotional, behavioral, relational, and developmental problems in very young children calls for a multidisciplinary perspective and collaborative approach. It also emphasized that infants and toddlers must be understood, evaluated, and treated within the context of the family.

Finally, it is important to recognize that infant mental health work and training, regardless of discipline, must include an emphasis on prevention. Different models of assessment, intervention, and treatment emerge from this perspective. As Selma Fraiberg, a pioneer in this area, stated that when working with infants and families, "It's a little bit like having God on your side" (Fraiberg, 1987). The perspective that one can right problems and enhance normal development is crucial as we provide training for multidisciplinary professionals. This is an area where there is much opportunity to make life better for young children and their families. It is our task to seize the opportunity.

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