Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation (ECMHC) is a nationally recognized, evidence-based strategy designed to strengthen the capacity of early childhood professionals to foster children’s social-emotional development. For child care providers, ECMHC offers a unique source of reflective support, helping them to manage stress, understand child needs, and develop nurturing relationships with young children.

Why This Matters

In Colorado, ECMHC has been a cornerstone of the state’s investment in early childhood mental health for more than a decade. This brief documents Colorado providers’ satisfaction with ECMHC services, exploring how they are perceived, how they support providers across care settings, and where opportunities remain to strengthen the program’s reach and impact.

What We Found

Findings from the administrative data offer a clear picture of the perceived benefits of ECMHC in Colorado. Over a three-year period, ECMHC services reached thousands of children, teachers, directors, and families across nearly every county in the state. The majority of services were implemented at the child level in licensed, center-based child care settings. Survey responses consistently indicated high satisfaction with ECMHC services for both teachers and directors, with some variation by urbanicity, ages of children served, populations served, and length of cases.

How We Did It

From February to June 2025, using administrative data from the Colorado Department of Early Childhood, we analyzed 594 satisfaction survey responses and characteristics of 3,070 cases and 6,974 recipients of ECMHC services. The satisfaction surveys and services analyzed took place between July 2022 and July 2025. We conducted tests of significance (ANOVAS, t-tests, and OLS regressions) to examine differences between subgroups.