Abstract
Low-income women experience disproportionately high rates of adverse maternal mental health outcomes, such as pregnancy-related depression, and have less access to behavioral health support. Adverse maternal mental health affects children through compromising bonding, impeding early childhood development, and increasing risks of child maltreatment. Integrated behavioral health approaches can improve access to behavioral health services by locating services in community-based settings routinely accessed by low-income families. Warm Connections is an innovative integrated behavioral health program delivered in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) and rooted in an infant and early childhood mental health (IECMH) framework. This exploratory study describes Warm Connections and provides evaluation results from its pilot implementation. Findings suggest Warm Connections may reduce distress and increase parenting efficacy among low-income mothers and support further research of this program’s feasibility.
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This project was submitted to the Colorado Multiple Institutional Review Board and determined to be exempt research because information was collected as part of a program evaluation project and all data was de-identified. Because this project used de-identified, previously collected data, informed consent was not possible. The authors affirm they do not have conflicts of interest. All authors meet the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors’ definition of “author” and certify their responsibility for the conduct and interpretation of analyses of this study, have participated in the conceptualization and writing of this manuscript, and approve the final version of this manuscript.
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Klawetter, S., Glaze, K., Sward, A. et al. Warm Connections: Integration of Infant Mental Health Services into WIC. Community Ment Health J 57, 1130–1141 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10597-020-00744-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10597-020-00744-y