The current study evaluated the effectiveness of a home‐based psychotherapeutic Infant Mental Health Home Visiting (IMH‐HV) intervention for enhancing parenting sensitivity; a secondary aim was to evaluate whether the use of video feedback was associated with greater treatment response. Participants were N = 78 mothers and their children (age at entry ranged from prebirth to 24‐month old (M = 9.8, SD = 8.4), who were initiating IMH‐HV services with community mental health‐based therapists (N = 51). Dyads were assessed during extended home visits via standardized interviews and observational and questionnaire methods within the first month of treatment (baseline), and again 6 and 12 months thereafter. Following each of these extended home visits, study evaluators completed a standard Q‐sort to capture observations of maternal sensitivity during the visit. Therapists completed fidelity checklists used to derive the total number of IMH‐HV sessions received (i.e., dosage) and frequency with which therapists provided video feedback. Results indicated a dose–response relationship between number of sessions and maternal sensitivity, and that video review with parents independently contributed to improved maternal sensitivity. Discussion focuses on the effectiveness of this community‐based psychotherapeutic home visiting model for enhancing parenting, as well as the value of video feedback as a specific therapeutic strategy.

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This case study examined the integration of the PICCOLO tool within home-based services using an infant mental health approach with a family at risk. The tool was identified as best practice in Michigan and fits well with basic infant mental health theory. A narrative case example shows the use of the tool with a family and in supervision. Some of the benefits of using the PICCOLO within an infant mental health approach include (a) fostering a paradigm shift in multiple relationships from a deficit model toward a focus on strengths, (b) promoting efficacy and a positive outlook in parents, (c) documenting the impact of services on the parent-infant relationship, (d) providing a concrete structure for developmental guidance and strategies for using existing strengths to drive interventions, (e) allowing better sensitivity to unique strengths in families with children with special needs, (f) increasing observation skills and reflective capacity for the therapist.

This issue of the Infant Mental Health Journal presents the first papers from a tripartite evaluation study of state‐sponsored infant mental health home visiting program in Michigan, United States. This series of studies has been led by Kate Rosenblum PhD and Maria Muzik MD, Department of Psychiatry, the University of Michigan and faculty from the Michigan Collaborative for Infant Mental Health Research for the State of Michigan, Department of Health and Human Services, Mental Health Services for Children, to fulfill the requirements of state legislation (State of Michigan Act No. 291, Public Acts of 2013) that required that all home visiting programs meet certain requirements to be established as an evidence‐based practice. In this introduction, we provide a historical context for the delivery of infant mental health home visiting through the community mental health system in the state of Michigan.

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