StarVista’s Early Childhood Services (ECS) provides a range of comprehensive supportive services to children aged 0-5 and the parents, caregivers and childcare providers who care for them.

Our ECS programs are Early Childhood Community Team (ECCT), Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation (ECMHC), and Healthy Homes.

Through these services, we help families to meet immediate needs, decrease stressors, address the impacts of their past traumas and hardships, build supportive communities with one another, access vital mental health services, and pave the way for children and their families to create positive, healthy futures. In doing so, we are also helping families to break harmful cycles (e.g., poverty, trauma) that not only impact that family and the community but future generations to come.

Services are provided either in-person or via Telehealth.

Self-referrals accepted.

PROVIDERS: ECS REFERRAL FORM

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Telephone Number:
(650) 465-0305

[email protected]

Contact:

Tara Metcalf-Gonzales, LMFT
Program Manager, Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation (ECMHC)
[email protected]

Aurora Gallardo
Program Manager, Early Childhood Community Team (ECCT) & Healthy Homes
[email protected]

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EARLY CHILDHOOD COMMUNITY TEAM (ECCT)

With the support of the Mental Health Services Act (Prop. 63) and San Mateo County BHRS, StarVista’s Early Childhood Community Team services the Coastside: Half Moon Bay, Pescadero, North Fair Oaks, Daly City, South San Francisco, East Palo Alto, and La Honda.

Our Early Childhood Community Team strives to foster healthy cognitive, emotional and social development for children prenatal through five, with a special focus on infants and children under three.

Our approach focuses on the parent/child relationship as the primary means for intervention. We also focus on child development and we strive to individualize services so that we can meet each child and family’s unique needs.

Identifying difficulties early and providing families with the proper assessments and interventions can make a difference in a child’s earliest years and for many years thereafter.

The following program highlights are free of charge to families and available in English or Spanish:

• Community worker support services (home based)
• Early Childhood Consultation
• Mental Health services for children and their caregivers
• Parent Support groups
• Parent-Child Activity Groups

Services are provided in the home, virtually, and community settings.

EARLY CHILDHOOD MENTAL HEALTH CONSULTATION (ECMHC)

StarVista’s Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation (ECMHC) program strengthens the social-emotional development and school readiness of our community’s high-risk children ages birth to 5 and supports low-income families and caregivers by providing mental health consultation, early intervention services, direct clinical services, and support for parents and caregivers on-site at subsidized childcare centers.

Mental Health Consultation aims to promote the overall quality of care provided to children in group care settings. The consultant partners with providers and parents in identifying, understanding and effectively responding to the social-emotional needs of the children in preschools, family childcare homes and infant/toddler programs. Some of the tasks a mental health consultant performs include:

Toddler crawling through blue play tunnel

Program Consultation

• Providing mental health consultation to ECE providers, incorporating reflective practice facilitation into staff meetings and individual meetings with providers
• Supporting ECE providers around many program aspects such as communication between staff, family engagement, and social-emotional learning
• Observing in the classroom or care setting
• Exploring strategies teachers are using to support children and to develop relationships with parents

Case Consultation | Working with staff to enhance understanding of specific infant and early childhood mental health topics

• Observing identified children within the programs
• Meeting with parents to better understand the needs of specific children
• Connecting families with community resources and services

HEALTHY HOMES

With the support of First 5 San Mateo County, StarVista’s Healthy Homes program serves families with children birth through age 5 who are facing a variety of stressors in their lives.

Healthy Homes strives to prevent child abuse and neglect, enhance the parent-child relationship, and reduce the impact of risk factors such as domestic violence, trauma, poverty, immigration, food insecurity, substance abuse, mental illness, and language barriers, among others.

The following program highlights are free of charge to families, available in English or Spanish and can be home-based when appropriate:

• Mental health services for children and their caregivers
• Parent Support Groups
• Parent-Child Activity Groups

Services are provided in the home, virtually, and community settings.

Funding provided by First 5 San Mateo County.