Participants will learn about the key components of social emotional development in young children, and why this aspect of development is of critical importance to their long term functioning in a variety of environments. Specific parenting behaviors/skills that facilitate social emotional development will be outlined as well as how parental stress and mental health problems can decrease the parent’s emotional availability and ability to provide what the child needs for optimal social-emotional development.

Joyce Westphal MSW, LISW is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with more than 38 years of experience in social work and mental health. She currently serves as an Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Consultant to programs in an 8 county area in Iowa and maintains a private psychotherapy practice in Winterset, IA. The majority of her career has involved providing psychotherapy through a variety of modalities with young children, adolescents and adults in community mental health, residential and private practice settings. She has served in both clinical and administrative roles and has worked extensively with clients with co-occurring disorders. Her interest and training in infant and early childhood mental health and dynamic psychotherapy has allowed her to provide supervision, education and consultation to professionals outside of her work settings. Her additional research interests include attachment, social emotional development in young children, object relations theory and personality disorder treatment.

Prevent Child Abuse Iowa would like to thank our presenting sponsor: Iowa Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) Program and our webinar sponsor: Iowa Association for Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health