Mental Health U
Mental Health U is a podcast dedicated to demystifying and destigmatizing mental health issues. If you or someone you know is struggling with depression, anxiety, trauma, or some other mental health issue, then this podcast is for you.
Mental Health U
Nurturing Young Minds: Leona Lewis and Veronica Laverde on Early Intervention and Strength-Based Child Development
Embrace a new horizon in children's mental health with our expert guests, Leona Lewis and Veronica Laverde, as they unfold the mysteries of early intervention and the strength-based approach. Together, we navigate the waters of young minds, discovering how recognizing and nurturing a child's potential can make all the difference from birth to five years old. This podcast promises a transformative exploration for parents and educators, guiding you to see the early signs in behavioral shifts, and how to support mental wellness in our little ones without jumping to diagnoses or negative labels.
As we converse with Leona and Veronica, we reveal the unconventional yet impactful role of consultants in child development. Witness how collaborative consulting can turn everyday challenges into opportunities for teaching life skills. Feel empowered as we share strategies to create a supportive network, emphasizing the importance of cultivating hope and confidence in every interaction with children. Our approach promises to shift the paradigm from problem-focused to strength-celebrating, fostering a nurturing environment for both kids and caregivers to thrive in.
The journey wraps up with an emphasis on joy and positivity, the quiet heroes in the quest for mental well-being. We dissect practical, evidence-based techniques such as the Positive Parenting Program and conscious discipline, arming you with a toolkit to address common concerns with grace. And for those eager to continue the conversation, we hint at the promise of future dialogues that will further enrich our approach to fostering robust mental health in our youngest generation. Join us for this heartfelt episode that's both a celebration of and a guiding light for the path to children's mental wellness.
And we view the children and the families and the centers that we work with through a different lens. We're very collaborative, we partner with our families, we partner with our children, we're building relationships and we're strengths detectives. So we're looking for the good stuff.
Bill Emahiser:Hello and welcome. I'm your host, bill Emeiser, and you're listening to Mental Health U, the podcast dedicated to demystifying and destigmatizing mental health issues. So if you or someone you know is struggling with depression, anxiety, trauma or some other mental health issue, then this podcast is for you. This episode is proudly sponsored by Unison Health, dedicated to making lives better through compassionate, quality mental health and addiction treatment services. Learn more at unisonhealthorg. We're talking all about mental health and mental wellness for young children from birth to five. I have two amazing experts on the podcast today. With me is Leona Lewis and Veronica Laverde. Hello, folks, and welcome.
Leona Lewis:Thanks for having us, Bill.
Bill Emahiser:Yes, I am excited for you to be here. Let's start with you telling us a little bit about your background and why you decided to get into this kind of work.
Veronica Laverde:Sure I can get started. My name is Veronica Laverde. I'm the Early Childhood Mental Health Program Manager over at Unison Health. I've been working with children for about 12 years. I've been working as a therapist and I've done a whole bunch of different jobs and different types of therapy with children and I kind of knew early on in my career that children is kind of where I wanted to focus my career. That children is kind of where I wanted to focus my career. I just love, I love the thought that you know what the work that we could do could really change a whole life, you know, and really get people started on the right foot. So that's kind of why I've gotten into this.
Bill Emahiser:How about you, Leona?
Leona Lewis:My name's Leona Lewis and I'm an early childhood mental health consultant here at Unison and a clinical therapist, and it's been a life dream. When I was little, I wanted to work with children and I had a lot of creative ideas. And when I started volunteering in the community, I found that if a child could express themselves in very creative ways, they were more likely to be cooperative, more fun, and I just love the energy and spontaneity of children.
Bill Emahiser:Working with children, I have the luxury of knowing you both for quite some time and I know how passionate you are about this work and I'm really glad that we have you both on to talk about some of these issues that might be could potentially be impacting really young children. Can we start out maybe with some common mental health challenges or issues that young children birth to five may actually face?
Leona Lewis:I like that you're bringing that up as a question for us to start with, bill. But being that our program here at Unison we really are strength space, we really focus on the potential of children, on the potential of children, and so I'd like to talk a little bit about the strengths that children bring and how we, as consultants, we tap into those strengths. So one thing we know about children is they love to play. They have such boundless energy and when those needs, those specific needs that they have, are met, they blossom. They blossom, they cooperate, they develop and they go on and reach their potential.
Leona Lewis:So the strengths of having a consultant, an early childhood mental health consultant involved would be to see from that lens, to see the child that might be having some challenges from a more positive point of view and being able to see how that child is not able to express that strength and looking then at the barriers. But we always start with the strengths. Even when we're talking with the parents and the staff, we always look at okay, what does that child do? Well, what does that child gravitate to? What do they enjoy?
Bill Emahiser:That's awesome. I absolutely love that strength-based approach and I think, with young children, I'm sitting here thinking, as you're talking about it what are some signs or symptoms that you would see, or some clues that a parent or a caregiver should be aware of that might say you know, maybe there is something going on with my child and maybe some um, maybe a consultant or a therapist might be warranted.
Veronica Laverde:Absolutely Um. So children experience a lot of the same um mental health concerns that even adults do, you know. They get anxious, they get sad and depressed and they have a hard time managing changes. But one of the things that is interesting about children, or one of the challenges to use kind of that word of challenges with kids is that they just have a limited capacity to communicate all the different complex things that they're experiencing.
Veronica Laverde:And so some of the complicated but privileged work that we have as consultants, but also as parents and teachers and caregivers, is that we can investigate and we can look at like, hey, something has changed in my child. So that's like one of the things that I talk to parents a lot about. It's just like when did you notice a shift, you know, and some parents say, oh, this has been going on since they were, you know, an infant. I, you know they've never done this well, or or they've always struggled with this, or I've always noticed this, but but a lot of times there's a shift and so we can kind of be we can be curious about you know, when did something change for their child in terms of their behavior and other things that we can look at is. You know, how does their child's behavior look in comparison to some of their same age peers?
Veronica Laverde:Kids who are in the early childhood environment get identified sooner than some of the children that are raised at home, for instance.
Veronica Laverde:I'm not here to argue the benefits or the drawbacks of being raised at home or in a child care setting.
Veronica Laverde:I'm just saying that when kids get to be seen next to 10 of their peers, we get to notice if they have any particular strengths or particular challenges that they're dealing with.
Veronica Laverde:So we might notice that they're having a hard time socializing with other kids, they're having a hard time initiating play, or the only way they know how to connect with other children is aggressively, or maybe they just don't seem to have any interest in playing with other children, and so there's one of the things that I usually encourage people to think about is like you know, what do you notice when they're playing with other kids their age?
Veronica Laverde:But I also want to, like you know, really encourage parents to listen to their intuition. A lot of times parents know they just they have a feeling or an inkling that something's not right here, and if they're experiencing that, go talk to their pediatrician or talk to their child care provider or talk to a consultant like Leona or myself their child care provider, or talk to a consultant like Leona or myself, and we can definitely guide them in the right direction. Not to mention, there are a lot of really great standardized tools that we use, like ages and stages, to kind of see if kids are progressing on time, meeting certain kinds of milestones, and things like that.
Bill Emahiser:Absolutely. And you know, as you were describing this, it really sounds like that, because these children are so young that they just they don't have that ability to communicate. Maybe like an older person would that their behavior is the communication, absolutely. Am I hearing that correctly?
Leona Lewis:Yes, yes, in fact, you said it so clear and correct All behavior is communication. That's how we view it. So if we see a pattern of behaviors, we know that child is communicating something, and then we work together with the parent and actually, even though we're consultants, we see the parents as the experts. They live with the children. We come in but they actually live with the children. So we hold a lot of respect for the caregivers who work with the children and the parents and the guardians who live with the children.
Bill Emahiser:It sounds like consulting is significantly different than therapy. Can you tell me what is a consultant? What is it that you actually do and how is it different than what we do in therapy?
Leona Lewis:therapist, we actually take our therapy hats off and we view the children and the families and the centers that we work with through a different lens. We're very collaborative, we partner with our families, we partner with our children, we're building relationships and we're strengths detectives. So we're looking for the good stuff, we're looking for what works, what used to work and what's not working now, and so, as we do that, we work together on common ground as a team and we come up with a plan to try to help the child. But yeah, we're not looking at diagnosing. We're trying to show the people that we're working with the families and the staff that they lead.
Leona Lewis:We follow we will give them feedback and they don't have to listen to us. But we have their interest in mind, especially the child. So we come in and we try to bring all the parties together on behalf of the child. So we come in and we try to bring all the parties together on behalf of the child.
Veronica Laverde:Absolutely. And I'd also add that you know, when we're talking about three-year-olds, there's really no benefit to getting them to. You know, laying back on a couch and talking about their history, and well, you know, two years ago my mom forgot to give me my bottle and so I've been carrying that around for a while. You know there's really no benefit to that. And so a lot of times, what we're doing as consultants is really looking at the system that the child is in and building capacity for that systems to support whatever the child needs. So you know, where's the skill deficit? Where do they? What do they not know how to do yet?
Veronica Laverde:And, just like we would teach them their letters and their numbers, we're going to teach them how to share, how to ask for help if they need it, how to ask another child for space, instead of shoving or hitting, and really just without pathologizing it and saying you know, you know I'm really really concerned. This is a you know, there's a terrible behavior, and this means this, that and the other. It's just like, hey, this child doesn't know how to. You know, fill in the blank. And this is how we build that skill within your child. And so a lot of our work is actually with teachers and parents, because we're just like, hey, this is how you support a three year old with this, because we're not going to be able to talk therapy or talk consult that child into a different behavior. So so a lot of the work is very, very adult, focused in helping them build their own skill set in helping them build their own skill set.
Bill Emahiser:So am I to understand that if I'm a parent and I have maybe a two-year-old or a three-year-old that's exhibiting some behaviors that I'm concerned about and they don't have these skills, that in a way, as a consultant, you're actually not just there for the child but really there to support and empower me as a parent to help my child in the best way possible?
Veronica Laverde:Yeah, absolutely Absolutely.
Veronica Laverde:There's this one part of the tenets that we follow as consultants and that's holding hope, and it's one of our favorite ones, because we're at Unison and here we're all about creating hope, right?
Veronica Laverde:So that word hope is so important to the work that we do, um, and so that's something that we share with parents, because I think you know when, when you are dealing with a really frustrating behavior and you don't know what to do, it's a completely different feeling than if I'm dealing with a frustrating behavior and I know exactly what to do. And so and so, helping parents, helping teachers and caregivers, um, know how to manage a situation, even in the midst of something that's really frustrating and typical because, let's be honest, two-year-, three year olds, it can be frustrating and some of that's really typical. But helping them know exactly what to do, exactly how normal or exactly how to create to leverage the child's strengths in these moments, can be so empowering and it can really create some hope within families who have just been, you know, you know, pulling their hair out, not knowing what to do.
Bill Emahiser:Mental Health? U is brought to you by Unison Health. Unison Health making lives better From a therapeutic standpoint. I know there's sometimes that people think that all I have to do is come in for 50 minutes and do therapy and then I don't have to do anything else. Is that true of consulting, or is there something that people need to do outside of the consulting session?
Leona Lewis:Good point, bill. There is a process. There is a process, and so when we're called on, it's generally from either the parents or the child care setting because they want some assistance. So we walk in and we build relationships and we observe before we start handing out, do this or do that, because we're all about trying to create community as we build relationships and then, as we observe the children and we observe the classroom, then we give our feedback and we bring everyone together to give their feedback. And what's so wonderful when we're working together as a team? A lot of times the parents and or the staff, the teaching staff will come up with strategies and resources that have not been talked about before, and it all gets talked about at once, and so we become that particular child's team, if you will. And if we're working with the whole classroom, we become the classroom's team, but we're working together for one goal to help address whatever that struggle is, whatever those challenges might be.
Bill Emahiser:That's fantastic. This sounds like a really rewarding job. Quite frankly, I'm assuming that you have a lot of fun with this.
Leona Lewis:I'm sure it's a lot of work, but it's very creative and, as you know, as we said, you know being strengths detectives, we're not just looking for the good stuff in our children, we're looking for the strengths in our teaching staff, we're looking for the strengths in the parents and in the household. And so when we start doing that, you know, oftentimes it's called the strategy of praise, but we find, as human beings, it works when we praise each other, when we praise our partners, when we, our families, whomever. It allows us to relax. It allows us to develop and create and go forward and cooperate and do those things that are needed. So, yes, it is a lot of fun. There can be some challenges, but that's where we get to breathe. We get to breathe and use the very things that we're trying to share with others and teach others. We use those same kinds of strategies on ourselves to calm down.
Veronica Laverde:Yeah, and I think there's so much value in finding enjoyment in your work. I mean there's. I mean we're not, you know, here today to talk about work satisfaction or anything like that but when you enjoy the work that you do and I'm talking about for child care providers as well as consultants and even for parents when you're enjoying the act of parenting, you know that comes out and that becomes really clear to kids as well. Kids are just very intuitive about the feelings of others around them, and so when we as consultants come in, we start enjoying a child who has been creating maybe a lot of chaos for a particular teacher and we start finding them cute and adorable. And did you notice that funny thing he did? Right there?
Veronica Laverde:They get to experience that child in a different way as well, and it's so important that children experience our enjoyment of them that builds relationship and attachment and so, um, so, yeah, that's, that's something that we get to do, and I, this morning, I spent my morning singing the wheels on the bus and the itsy bitsy spider with a group of kids, and it was great. I had a really good time.
Bill Emahiser:That is so amazing.
Leona Lewis:Yeah, great stuff.
Bill Emahiser:Yeah, can you tell me a little bit about? I mean? There's so much good information here. I could probably spend, you know, three or four days just talking to you guys about this stuff. It gets me so excited about the work that you're doing and the impact that you're having. Are there any misconceptions or stigmas surrounding mental health of young children? And the reason I ask this is because we know that stigma and misconceptions about mental health in general can be a barrier, can keep people from accessing resources or looking for help. Do you find any common misconceptions or stigma around around mental health issues when it comes to really young children?
Leona Lewis:Actually, even in how you stated the question lies, I think, the concern or the problem, if you will. So mental health is stigmatized and often when the general public hears mental, it's associated with something being wrong, something totally pathological, something weird, something that. But if we could begin to shift the understanding in the community to mental health is something we all need, we all need to have a mindset that's healthy. We need to have an overall way of feeling and thinking and acting that moves us forward. So we're talking mental health, just like physical health we want. If, on this podcast, Bill, I just passed out or I started bleeding or something physically, you would do what with me? You would tell me to do what.
Bill Emahiser:Yeah, I apply pressure.
Leona Lewis:I'm calling 911, right yeah, absolutely.
Bill Emahiser:Right, we're going to try some kind of intervention immediately. Right, we're not going to wait. Yes, we're going to call for some experts as well, right? Yes?
Leona Lewis:And overall in the general public that's well accepted. If something physical happens, it's accepted. People help out and you get results and you get the solution. When we bring in the phrase mental health, somehow it's been twisted through the ages to mean something bizarre or crazy or whatever the taboo language people want to use. But we want to shift it back to being something that's positive.
Leona Lewis:When we talk about mental health, we're talking about wellness, as you stated at the beginning of our program. So we want our children to have wellness, mental wellness and so one of the barriers that we find is when we're getting referrals or we see a child struggling, sometimes there can be a shyness, a sort of timidity from the parents or the caregivers not wanting to have someone involved with their child. That represents mental quote unquote. And so what we do when we go into child care settings, we deliver our resources and our assistance right there. The person does not have to come into an agency. They do not have a case opened. We are looking at ways to help that child that's struggling. We're trying to have some reduction in the struggles and an increase in them being able to function and have fun.
Bill Emahiser:We know that you go and you help young children and the parents and you're building bridges, but are there specific I don't know programs, or is it evidence-based approaches that you're utilizing to do this kind of work?
Leona Lewis:Yes, and so I'm going to touch a little bit on the question you asked at the beginning too, about challenges. So a lot of the common challenges that we do get after you know, we're looking for strengths but we're called in because of the challenges, and some of those challenges are behaviors that get in the way of the child being able to function in the childcare setting. So it's disruptive or it's aggressive, or they're having difficulty with tantrums or controlling their emotions, or not talking or not participating. Sometimes it's a lot of anxiety, sometimes it's a lot of trauma. So when they are having all of those things, there are some go-to methods that we generally apply that are looked up to, you know, well-esteemed, and so one of those is Triple P, and TripleP stands for the Positive Parenting Program.
Leona Lewis:Now, positive Parenting Program is something we offer to the child care settings, caregivers, the parents, to teach them some different strategies in helping with some of the behaviors, some of the challenges that were just mentioned. There's also conscious discipline, and conscious discipline is something that a lot of the child care settings use, and it helps calm the staff down and it helps teach the children how to breathe and calm down and how to problem solve, and so both of those are well known and they're very specific and can be taught to children and parents. They have particular strategies, like praise, like we mentioned a bit ago about praising and breathing, self-calming, problem-solving strategy, friendship skills, making choices. I could go on and on, but I won't. Yes.
Bill Emahiser:Well, you guys have both have been so informative and so helpful. You guys have both have been so informative and so helpful. Really comes down to if I'm listening to this podcast and I've got a child and I live in the northwest Ohio area Right, so I might be in Wood County or Lucas County or maybe one of the surrounding areas and I wanted to learn more about your program, or maybe I've got a child that I think would benefit from participating in the program. How would a parent go about contacting you or doing a referral or getting enrolled?
Veronica Laverde:Well, you could always call the Unison intake line 419-214-HOPE, but you could also even call me directly. My number is 419-936-7443. My name is Veronica and if you call Unison and you ask for Veronica, you're going to get me. There's only one of us here and someone will be able to get you to me and we can find the path that's going to be most appropriate for your child. You know we can do a bit of a phone call and brief consultation to kind of make sure we're directing you in the right way, and we can also provide external referrals. Say, we at Unison don't have the type of programming that meets your child's needs. Between Leona and I we know a lot of the area programming you know, like Help Me Grow or through the Department of DED or speech therapy or psychological testing. You know all these different roads that parents might need to go down for the benefit of their child. We can help them with that as well.
Bill Emahiser:Fantastic. Well, I really appreciate your time today, the. The information that you gave was just amazing and I hope I've already got so many ideas for having you back on the show. So I hope you'll come back and see us again on mental health you and maybe talk a little bit more about, uh, this population, about, um, all the amazing work you're doing, and maybe next time around we can give some, some, some tips and strategies to parents and caregivers that maybe they can just try right, try over the summer or or practice whenever they get an opportunity.
Veronica Laverde:So thank you so much for being on. Absolutely Thanks for having us, Bill. Thank you.
Bill Emahiser:This podcast has been brought to you by Unison Health. Unison Health is a nonprofit mental health agency dedicated to serving the Northwest Ohio community for the past 50 years.