The ACT Program is composed of a foundations phase, an advanced clinical training phase, and two recommended supporting activities – Infant Observation (IO) and Reflective Practice Consultation Groups (RPCG). The image below shows the phases and supporting activities, to be discussed more later, and how they fit within the 15-month program timeframe.
The Foundations Phase introduces and grounds professionals to the culturally responsive and empirically informed principles, knowledge, skills, and perspectives of infant and early childhood mental health and child development from prenatal to 5 years of age. The Advanced Clinical Training Phase focuses on specialized clinical & consultative infant and early childhood mental health engagement and approaches rooted in contemporary understanding and application of attachment and community psychoanalytic/psychodynamic perspectives, theories, and concepts. In addition to the traditional focus on relational processes and perspectives and the reflective stance, ACT integrates diversity-informed practice principles based on the Diversity-Informed Tenets for Work with Infants, Children and Families to prepare clinicians to address the influences of systemic and structural inequities on the lives of infants, children and families, themselves, and their practice. This includes the understanding of deeply rooted social and cultural influences of narrowly defined standards and norms based on our history of colonization.
The ACT Program is designed to be as friendly to working professionals as possible. However, the intensive nature of the program will require time from work as well as weekends for content learning sessions and some weekday time for supporting activities.
The COVID-19 pandemic has shifted the world and the ways in which we communicate and interact. We proceed holding in mind that COVID-19 is here to stay and plan for learning community cohorts to be hybrid in structure with the majority of content learning sessions being delivered via synchronous Zoom meetings and strategically scheduled in-person gatherings over the 15-months of the program.
Recognizing the fatiguing effects that many experience from online engagement, we plan for most sessions to be 3 hours long per day, to be held every other week on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays with alternative schedules to accommodate holiday observances and popular vacation seasons. Please review the dates and session lengths thoroughly.
Monthly Infant Observation virtual visits will be determined in agreement with the volunteer families. The monthly 90-minute Infant Observation Reflection Groups and the two monthly 90-minute Reflective Practice/Consultation Groups will likely be scheduled on weekday evenings.
We encourage you to review the Program Schedule above and the current cohort’s Tentative Calendar as you consider whether your participation in the ACT Program is a good fit for you at this time in your personal and professional life.