2023 Endorsement Application dates:

Infant/Early Childhood Family Associates (I/ECFA), Infant/Early Childhood Family Specialists (I/ECFS) and Infant/Early Childhood Family Reflective Supervisors (I/ECFRS): Due dates: March 24 and September 8, 2023

Infant/Early Childhood Mental Health Specialists (I/ECMHS)and Infant/Early Childhood Mental Health Mentors (I/ECMHM): Application deadline: July 14, 2023

Exam date: October 13, 2023

Alaska's babies and toddlers, and their families, deserve the best from everyone who touches their lives. They deserve competent professionals in all fields, who understand the unique developmental needs of very young children, and who interact with families in ways that protect and promote every child's relationships with her caregivers, communities, and cultures.

 A key mission of AK-AIMH is to improve families' access to competent professional services across all sectors during the early years of their children's lives. To that end, AK-AIMH recognizes that all of us who serve babies, toddlers, and their families must continually learn and grow; must gain, and maintain, the professional skills, knowledge, experiences, and support that allow us to bring our best to the families of very young children.  

Decades of work by national and international experts in all disciplines within the field of infant and early childhood mental health have created a framework of professional competencies and practice standards now recognized nationwide. AK-AIMH has adopted this framework to promote professional development for everyone involved in services for infants, toddlers, & their families.

This framework is the Endorsement for Culturally Sensitive, Relationship-Focused Practice Promoting Infant Mental Health developed by the Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health (MI-AIMH). It has been adopted & fully implemented within 33 state associations of infant mental health.  

We invite you to read these web pages and learn about Endorsement. While it may initially seem overwhelming, AK-AIMH is dedicated to making this process transparent and accessible to all applicants from every field.

After you have spent some time with these materials, don't hesitate to contact us at endorsement@akaimh.org  so we can help you begin this professional development journey for yourself and on behalf of Alaska’s youngest children.