Using genograms in infant mental health assessments

The World Health Organization recommends all infants and children receive responsive care during the first three years of life. It highlights that countries need to strengthen their workforce’s capacity to support responsive caregiving and early learning among all families and children.

The Practice strategies for infant and toddler assessment online course features a case study that demonstrates the practice skill of nurturing responsive parenting. Within the course, psychologist Lauren Keegan provides her clinical reflections on the case study genogram. In this episode, Lauren further explores how genograms can be used as a relational assessment tool during infant mental health assessments.

Lauren shares her extensive skills in using genograms in perinatal and infant mental health settings. She discusses how genograms provide a collaborative structure to show parents how intergenerational relationships influence caregiving. She also explores how reflective conversations with parents can support discoveries about the family’s social supports, past traumas and present coping strategies. Lauren outlines how to safely and gently explore links between the past and the present, to enhance caregivers’ insights and promote positive parent-child interactions.

In this episode you will learn:

• how using genograms can help map the intergenerational influences on infants’ and toddlers’ mental health [06:20]
• how genograms can provide a collaborative structure to build trust and help clients tell their stories [07:56]
• key areas for exploration when developing a genogram [16:27]
• ways that genograms can offer families a new perspective [25:50]

Further information and resources:

Practice strategies for infant and toddler assessment online course (Emerging Minds)

Healing the past by nurturing the future online course (Emerging Minds)

Keeping the infant and toddler in mind online course (Emerging Minds)

WHO guidelines on parenting interventions to prevent maltreatment and enhance parent–child relationships with children aged 0–17 years (World Health Organization)