Policies and Submissions - Australian Association for Infant Mental Health (AAIMHI) for the well-being of infants and very young children

Policies, Guidelines & Submissions

The Australian Association for Infant Mental Health Inc. (AAIMHI) aims to, in part:

• improve professional and public recognition that infancy is a critical period in psycho-social development, and
• work for the improvement of the mental health and development of all infants and families.

Position statements 

Position Statement 1: Controlled Crying
Position Statement 2: Responding to Infant Cues
Position Statement 3: Timeout Position Paper 3

Guidelines

Guideline 1: Infants and overnight care - post separation and divorce

Background paper to Guideline 1: Infants and overnight care - post separation and divorce

Contributions to other documents

• Breastfeeding inquiry
• Inquiry into work and family
• Endorsement - Our Children, Our Future

Research about what infants and young children need

The community context for early childhood care is the need or wish for both parents in families to work in places where children cannot be with them. When the paid parental leave provisions come into being it may mean that many parents will no longer need child care in the very early months of life. If less young babies are using long day care services it should ease the financial burden of providing appropriate care for babies.

The context for implementation, of course, includes resource, training and industrial issues and must include the growing body of knowledge about what infants and young children need for healthy development in all spheres. Therefore we believe that the implementation of regulations to ensure this are crucial to the wellbeing of Australian children and families.

Full RIS submission here