Summary
Description
POSITION OVERVIEW
IIK seeks a Director of Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health (IECMH), a senior leader at Invest in Kids, serving on the Program Leadership Team and reporting to the Vice President of Programs Strategy and Impact, responsible for advancing the statewide strategy to expand access to high-quality, evidence-based early childhood mental health and dyadic services, including Child First®. This role provides vision, leadership, and operational oversight to ensure model fidelity, effective implementation through the lens of implementation science, and continuous quality improvement across Implementing Partner Organizations (IPOs), including oversight of replication efforts, delivery of clinical reflective and programmatic consultation, and coordination of training and outreach in partnership with program purveyors.
The Director serves as a key liaison between IIK, community partners, and state and regional stakeholders, and model purveyors while leading efforts to support Colorado communities in adopting and sustaining IECMH programming aligned with IIK’s priorities. The Director demonstrates strong leadership, high emotional intelligence, a commitment to equity, an openness to innovation, excellent communication skills, and is driven to make a meaningful impact in the rapidly growing field of infant and early childhood mental health.
ESSENTIAL DUTIES/RESPONSIBILITIES
Senior Leadership
- Partner with the VP, Program Strategy and Impact and the Program Leadership Team to advance the IECMH focus area vision and strategy, data quality, evaluation, partnerships, in service to long-term impact.
- Contribute to and strengthen the IIK culture by modeling the behaviors and leadership expected of a smart and healthy organization.
- Serve as the clinical subject matter expert to inform and advance advocacy, public funding strategies, and workforce efforts for IECMH focus area, inclusive of the FORRCE (Finding Opportunities in Recruitment and Retention for Colorado Experts) Initiative.
- Lead the strategic development, oversight, and execution of the IECMH budget, while collaborating to align funding strategies and secure resources that advance IECMH priorities.
- Lead annual planning processes including strategic goal setting, performance management, and IPO contracting while ensuring accountabilities for all public and private funding commitments, metrics, and deliverables supporting IECMH focus area implementation.
Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Clinical Oversite
- Cultivate an equitable portfolio of IECMH programming that aligns with current best clinical practice, community needs, and the IIK mission.
- Build and maintain strong relationships with IECMH program purveyors to ensure alignment, communication and consistent feedback between field implementation and national replication and research
- Child First Colorado Clinical Lead
a. Serve as primary clinical liaison with Changent in service to Child First national model support.
b. Provide day to day clinical oversight and management of the replication of Child First within Colorado.
c. Provide direct clinical reflective and programmatic consultation and administrative support to Child First IPOs in Colorado.
d. Must complete all related training to implement Child First with fidelity. Must also fulfill all requirements to be nationally rostered in Child Parent Psychotherapy, is not already accomplished.
e. Monitor and ensure quality enhancement and model fidelity with IPOs, including, but not limited to, site-specific support and the Child First Accreditation process.
f. Complete and conduct training and outreach in collaboration with Changent staff.
g. Serve as a liaison between Changent, IIK, and Child First IPOs.
h. Collaborate with Changent’s Program team and cross-collaborative groups in service to enhance Child First practice
i. Review and complete all necessary documentation associated with consultation practice and quality enhancement efforts.
QUALIFICATIONS
- Licensed mental health clinician
- Endorsement in infant and/or early childhood mental health, preferred
- Minimum 5 years of experience providing reflective clinical supervision
- Experience facilitating, training or teaching in early childhood mental health
- Experience with quality improvement and program evaluation
- Experience implementing evidence-based practice with fidelity to model development
- Experience working in home and community-based settings with populations of diverse cultures and ethnicities
- Strong executive functioning skills, including prioritization, task initiation, cognitive flexibility, and goal-directed persistence
- Strong emotional intelligence, especially empathy, self-awareness, and active listening
REQUIREMENTS
- Master’s degree in clinical psychology, social work, marriage and family therapy, counseling, psychiatry, or a related field
- Experience providing dyadic services to culturally diverse young children and their caregivers
- Minimum 5 years of experience supervising mental health clinicians
- Trained and rostered in Child-Parent Psychotherapy
- Strong strategic thinking and project management skills, with the ability to translate vision into actionable plans and drive progress toward organizational goals.
- Demonstrated leadership in overseeing budgets and strategically aligning financial and program resources to advance organizational priorities and long-term impact
- Available for overnight travel to local communities
BENEFITS
• Life Insurance: 100% employer paid; Short-Term and Long-Term Disability.
• 401K: Match up to 3%; 100% vested immediately.
• Health Savings Account; Flexible Spending Account.
• Generous vacation, sick and personal time, in addition to an annual office closure from December 24 to January 1
• Hybrid work environment & more!
APPLICATION DIRECTIONS
Please direct all inquiries to Iesha Mitchell at imitchell@iik.org. Please submit cover letter, resume, and three professional references electronically. Applications will be accepted until June 10, 2026.
IIK is an equal opportunity employer that is committed to building a diverse workforce. IIK strives to create an inclusive workplace that embraces diverse backgrounds, life experiences and perspectives. It is the policy of IIK to prohibit discrimination against any person or organization based on age, race, sex, color, creed, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, transgender status, gender identity, gender expression, ancestry, marital status, gender, veteran status, political service, affiliation, or disability.
For more information about Invest in Kids and our programs, please visit www.iik.org.
