When Mental Health Awareness Month arrives each May, it’s an opportunity to highlight the importance of early relational health (ERH) to a child’s development. We sat down with Lisa Garcia, licensed mental health counselor and Neighborhood Villages’ Director of Early Relational Health, to continue our conversation on early relational health.

At Neighborhood Villages, we believe that early childhood education programs have the potential to be powerful hubs for positive Early Relational Health (ERH).

May marks the 75th annual Mental Health Awareness Month, and at Neighborhood Villages, we are using it as an opportunity to advocate for more support for children’s behavioral health needs and to provide an update on our work to address this critical issue.

"How do we create a curriculum that authentically serves the audience it is created for and where do we start?"

That was the question and puzzle that Neighborhood Villages sought to solve when creating an innovative, play-centered curriculum for toddlers.

We’re facing a children’s mental health crisis and our child care system cannot be left out of the solution. Fortunately, here at Neighborhood Villages, we’ve created a pilot to address these issues.

After studying the pandemic’s impact since March of 2020, here’s what over 2,000 surveyed parents, mostly Moms (97%) have shared.