Graduate Certificate in Infant-Family Mental Health

This certificate is delivered fully online.

On This Page...

Contact Information

Infant-Family Mental Health Certificate Coordinator: Liz Jack
Email: emjack@usfsp.edu
Phone: 727-873-4963

Who It's For/Brief Description

The fully online Infant-Family Mental Health (IFMH) graduate certificate program is designed for students who have earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology, social work, criminology, human development, early childhood education, nursing and other social science-related fields. It will benefit practitioners in allied health professions and social and behavioral sciences seeking to gain greater knowledge for working with infants and their families. Program emphasis provides coverage of theoretical/conceptual and applied issues in building knowledge and skills for understanding infant and toddler social and emotional development, also referred to as "infant mental health." It also builds knowledge and skills about how coparenting relationships develop and function in a diversity of different family systems, and a means of understanding how coparenting alliances can and should be capitalized on to promote the healthy adjustment of any infant or toddler.

This is a 12-credit hour certificate including a 3-credit hour practicum or internship. Students with experience in the field can substitute a program evaluation for the internship. The IFMH Certificate program's four courses cover best practices, latest research, and strategies that can help children birth to three and their families – even those facing substantial challenges – make more successful adjustments during the child's earliest years so that more young children might be ready to learn by preschool age. The program does not provide specialized clinical training in specific forms or modalities of intervention but rather provides broad coverage of knowledge necessary for informed and competent work for entry-level positions in early childhood mental health, prenatal and health-related positions, child protection and child welfare positions, and other fields serving families of infants and toddlers.

Certificate Course Offerings

1 year of coursework (January to December); 12 graduate credit hours. The four courses are to be taken sequentially: These courses do not apply to any other graduate certificate.

Course 1: CLP 6477 – Infant-Family Mental Health (3 credits) – This introductory pro-seminar, provides a comprehensive overview of core principles and practices for providing community-based infant-family mental health prevention and intervention services. (Dr. James McHale)

Course 2: SOW 6243 – Working with Systems of Care to Benefit Infants and Toddlers (3 credits) – Includes in-depth content on theoretical approaches for how systems interact and for providing services at a systems (family, agency, and community) level. The course will review family dynamics that impact infant/toddler development and examine agency climates that promote effective services. Students will be introduced to effective teamwork approaches to serve the infant/toddler’s support network, ethical dilemmas in infant-family mental health practice, and social policy issues that impact service delivery. (Dr. Susan Allen)

Course 3: CLP 6462 – Working with Families of Infants and Toddlers (3 credits) – Provides broad and in-depth coverage of challenges in providing effective Infant-Family Mental Health services to diverse families in both home and community contexts, integrating knowledge of infant development and family and social systems covered in Courses 1 & 2. Focus will include specific models for assessing, engaging, and intervening with family networks, with attention to specialized and at-risk populations (e.g. kinship and fragile family systems, families affected by domestic violence, foster-biological family systems, military families). (Dr. James McHale)

Course 4: ISS 6942 – Field Practice and Evaluation in Infant Family Mental Health (3 credits) – This course requires the student to be interning or working in an agency that provides services to infants or toddlers and their families. For students not working in this field an internship of at least 10 hours a week will be arranged. For teachers, this internship would consist of observation in child care centers or one-on-one observations of an Early Childhood Specialist in the home setting. In order to accommodate teachers’ schedules, they can begin accruing field practice hours during the summer. This course covers models for assessing the effectiveness of practice interventions and programs that serve infants/toddlers and their family/informal networks to support the children’s development. The capstone of this Certificate Program, a required outcome of this course, is a self-assessment of the students’ Infant-Family Mental Health practices and an evaluation proposal of an infant-family program. (Dr. Susan Allen)

Certificate Credit Towards Graduate Degree

Up to 12 hours of certificate courses can be applied to a graduate degree with department approval. The USFSP Master of Arts in Psychology is an ideal program choice for these courses to transfer as courses apply to the Risk, Resilience, and Prevention (RRP) concentration.
http://www1.usfsp.edu/spgrad/transferofcredit.htm

Standardized Tests

The GRE is NOT required for this graduate certificate.

Admission Deadlines

The Infant-Family Mental Health certificate program is now accepting applicants to begin in Spring 2014. For best consideration, all application materials should be received by the Office of Graduate Studies by December 1, 2013. The deadline for applications is December 15, 2013.

Admission Requirements

Applicants must satisfy the following:

• A baccalaureate degree from a regionally accredited institution.
• Overall minimum GPA of 3.0 or minimum GPA of 3.0 on all work completed while registered as an upper-division baccalaureate student.
• Prior undergraduate course work in ethics and in child development (requirement will be waived with permission of program faculty for practicing professionals working with families of children aged 0-3 with at least one year of prior direct service).
• 1000-word statement of intent for seeking a certificate in Infant-Family Mental Health, including discussion of: your background, especially the academic and professional aspects; the specific scholarly, policy, or professional issues in which you have an interest; how your background has prepared you to excel in the certificate in Infant-Family Mental Health program; and how you intend to apply your education when you complete our certificate program.
• Three (3) letters of recommendation from qualified people familiar with the nature of the work required of graduate students in the social sciences, and who can address your ability to excel in this type of work.
• Two (2) examples of professional or academic writing.
• One (1) official transcript from all institutions of higher learning where the applicant has earned a degree is required, but applicants may provide unofficial copies (photocopies or student-accessed transcripts) to expedite the application process.
• Infant-Family Mental Health Certificate Acknowledgement of Background Requirements Form

Application Process

1. Enroll at USFSP as a non-degree seeking student.
   If you are not currently enrolled at USFSP, or have not attended USFSP in the past 2 semesters, you need to apply as a non-degree seeking student. The application is located HERE. This will allow you to enroll at USFSP and register for classes. If you are a current graduate student, you do not need to complete this application.

• Under the Academic Interest section, select Non-Degree, then the Spring semester you wish to attend, then the USF St. Petersburg campus, then select the Non-Degree program. The $30 application fee will be assessed when completing this application and can be paid via credit card online. Please record your VZ number, which is presented at application confirmation. You will need it for the Department Approval Form (current graduate students do not need this number).
• Submitting the application will establish a USFID which is your unique ID number at USF. If you do not know your UID, you can access it on the website: https://netid.usf.edu/una/.

 

2. Apply to the Infant-Family Mental Health Graduate Certificate Program.
   

• Fill out the Departmental Approval form, then print, sign and submit to the Office of Graduate Studies.
• Also submit the following required documents to the Office of Graduate Studies:
  

1. 1000-word statement of intent for seeking a certificate in Infant-Family Mental Health, including discussion of: your background, especially the academic and professional aspects; the specific scholarly, policy, or professional issues in which you have an interest; how your background has prepared you to excel in the certificate in Infant-Family Mental Health program; and how you intend to apply your education when you complete our certificate program.
2. Three (3) letters of recommendation from qualified people familiar with the nature of the work required of graduate students in the social sciences, and who can address your ability to excel in this type of work.
3. Two (2) examples of professional or academic writing.
4. One (1) official transcript from all institutions of higher learning where the applicant has earned a degree is required, but applicants may provide unofficial copies (photocopies or student-accessed transcripts) to expedite the application process.
5. Infant-Family Mental Health Certificate Acknowledgement of Background Requirements Form

Registration Process

First, consult with the certificate coordinator and obtain an electronic course permit. Then, go to http://usfonline.admin.usf.edu/, the link to OASIS, USF's online registration system. Follow directions given online. To access online course materials, students must have the USF NetID (e-mail account). Please visit: https://netid.usf.edu/una/ to obtain the NetID.

Tuition and Fees

Florida Resident — $424.10 per credit hour tuition

Florida Non-Resident — $848.62 per credit hour tuition

Distance Learning Fees — $50.00 per credit hour tuition. The 2008 Florida Legislature authorized universities to charge distance learning fees to recover the costs of developing and delivering distance learning courses.

Additional fees may be assessed by the college.
Fees parallel that of standard graduate-level courses. Please visit http://usfweb2.usf.edu/uco/cashaccounting/tuition.asp for the most current tuition rates.