When educators, clinicians, and policy makers gathered this week in Lisle to launch a new focus on improving infant and early childhood mental health in DuPage County, their first task was to define — what exactly does mental health mean for babies and the youngest children?

The group of roughly 130 professionals — convened by Birth to Five Illinois, the DuPage County Health Department, and the Naperville nonprofit KidsMatter — came together to strategize ways to improve the earliest experiences that shape mental well-being in children up to 5 years old.

Early childhood mental health ‘rooted in social-emotional development’

The definition experts shared of what mental health looks like for these youngest community members is not therapy for toddlers, and it’s not an effort to diagnose y

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