Focusing on Relationships: An Effort That Pays

The field of infant and early childhood mental health is in a quandary. Best practice demands that infants and young children be treated in the context of their relationships with caregivers. But health insurance systems, including Medicaid, require that an individual, not a relationship, be identified as a subscriber and that treatment be documented and billed accordingly. This discrepancy produces conceptual and ethical dilemmas for clinicians. How do they document relationship-based intervention? How do they bring billing procedures into alignment with best practice? How do they get paid for the work they do? This book offers a solution: The Parent-Child Relationship Competencies (PCRCs) are a set of capacities that emerge spontaneously under ordinary circumstances, but which may be strained, impaired, or absent when something is wrong. PCRC-focused clinical assessment offers a clear path to relationship-based case formulation, treatment planning, documentation, and billing that readily conforms with the requirements of standard systems of care. With a foreword by former Director of the Infant-Parent Program, Jeree H. Pawl, this book will be an indispensable tool for all mental health professionals who work with infants and toddlers and their families.