Infant Mental Health
Clinical and translational outcomes in paediatric social work and infant mental health.
Our research focus
Our research is dedicated to understanding the connection and impact of early life stress on the mental health infants, young children, and their families. We investigate how serious illness, hospital experiences, significant family stress, and social disadvantage affect infants and toddlers and the parent-child relationship and design clinical interventions to support optimal development.
Key research areas
- Early life stress: Examining the effects of serious illness and hospital experiences on psychological and social-emotional outcomes for infants and young children.
- Enhanced measurement of outcomes using standardized observational measures and biomarkers of stress in addition to parent report to improve validity and reliability of measuring psychosocial outcomes in infants and toddlers.
- Interventions to repair harms from exposure to early life stress in health and early education and care settings.
- Data informed advocacy in early years policy drawing from clinical and intervention research including data on how significant family stress and social disadvantage influence learning and developmental outcomes.
Our research goals
By focusing on these connections, we aim to improve clinical and translational outcomes, enhancing the support and clinical care provided to children and their families during critical developmental stages.
Our research seeks to develop and trial effective clinical interventions and support systems and contribute to social policy that can mitigate the negative impacts of early life stress. We use an implementation science approach and embed interventions in clinical settings.
Contact us
Associate Professor Brigid Jordan
Email:
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Team Leaders
Group Members
Our projects
Early education and care projects
Through her University of Melbourne and Parkville Institute affiliations, Associate Professor Brigid Jordan is involved in several projects focused on early education and care for young children living with significant adversity including the co-design of a model of ECEC with an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community.
Infant and family wellbeing after cardiac surgery: life as a pre-schooler
This project studies how emotional and behavioural regulation develops in children who had cardiac surgery early in life, focusing on the factors that influence this development.
It is a longitudinal, prospective cohort study of pre-schoolers with congenital heart disease (CHD) who had cardiac surgery in the first six months of life.
Read more...
Psychosocial determinants of health in infants & preschool children with cystic fibrosis (CF) diagnosed via newborn screening
Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a serious, inherited condition that requires daily treatment, causes ongoing health challenges, and can increase the risk of early death for patients and their families.
The emotional and mental health impact of CF is considerable throughout a person's life. Our study looked at how the socio-emotional wellbeing of preschool children with CF relates to their clinical outcomes in early life.
Read more...Collaborations
The infant mental health group has a collaboration with:
- Baby & Child Research Center
- Donders Institute for Brain Cognition & Behaviour at Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen in the Netherlands.
Featured publications
Please note, some of these publications link to external PDF documents.
Tseng Y, Jordan B, Borland J, Clark M, Coombs N, Cotter K, Guillou M, Hill A, Kennedy A and Sheehan J, '36 months in the Early Years Education Program: Assessment of the impact on children and their primary caregivers', Changing the Trajectories of Australia's Most Vulnerable Children, Report No. 5 (October 2022). (external PDF link).
Hickey L, Anderson V, Jordan B. Australian parent and sibling perspectives on the impact of paediatric acquired brain injury on family relationships during the first 6 weeks at home. Health Soc Care Community. 2022 Nov;30(6):e5204-e5212. doi: 10.1111/hsc.13938. Epub 2022 Jul 26. PMID: 35880586.
Moore DE, White A, Jordan B, Uahwatanasakul W. What do children think about doctors' communication at the Teddy Bear Hospital? J Paediatr Child Health. 2022 Feb;58(2):243-247. doi: 10.1111/jpc.15688. Epub 2021 Aug 10. PMID: 34374472.
Clancy, T, Jordan, B, de Weerth, C, Muscara, F. (2020) Early Emotional, Behavioural and Social Development of Infants and Young Children with Congenital Heart Disease: A Systematic Review. J Clin Psychol Med Settings 27(4) : 686 -703
Pham, H, Vandeleur, M, Mainzer, R, Jordan, B, Clark, N, Du Berry, C, Schultz, A, Ramsay, K, Pettigrew, G, Harper, A, et al. P045 Association between childhood cystic fibrosis lung disease and adolescent sleep and mental health. SLEEP Advances 5(Supplement_1) : a44 -a45 2024