Colorado Association For Infant Mental Health

Programs: The colorado association for infant mental health (coaimh) had a very busy and productive year in 2013. Our membership benefited from several training opportunities, which is a primary goal of ours. We had the opportunity to host an infant mental health track at the regional rocky mountain early childhood conference in denver. We reviewed submissions for presentations in our track and made recommendations to conference organizers about which presentations would benefit our members the most. This was a successful conference and it allowed us to reach individuals in the early childhood field that we may not have otherwise had the opportunity to connect with. Additionally, we provided a spring teach-in, full-day workshop for our members. We also hosted a networking breakfast to connect current members and recruit officers for the 2013 election cycle. This was our first event of this type, but we hope to continue it annually. We also held the annual harmon lecture where we honored a distinguished psychiatrist who is an expert in the field of childhood development. Our membership also continues to benefit from our ongoing management of the cors directory. In addition to these activities for members, we spent some dedicated time working on board development this year. We held two retreats for executive committee members to further enhance and structure organizational goals. We also shifted our election cycle so that entire executive committee would not be transitioning at the same time. In 2013 the coaimh executive board continue to grow in its involvement in policy work. Members of the executive committee attended policy and advocacy community meetings related to infant mental health at both the state and local levels. These individuals represented coaimh and coaimh is not recognized as a community stakeholder for early childhood mental health on a state steering committee and state collaborative group. Finally, coaimh continued to make the infant mental health endorsement a priority. We supported several candidates through the endorsement process and now have a much larger cohort of endorsed providers in our state as a result. We anticipate this will continue to grow rapidly in the coming years. As part of our work in this area, members of the executive committee attended and participated in the annual league of states endorsement meeting again this year.