Pathways to Competence: Encouraging Healthy Social and Emotional Development in Young Children, Second Edition

Positive social-emotional development is recognized now more than ever as the cornerstone of success in school and in life—which means every early childhood professional must enter the field ready to support children's social and emotional health. This essential text is exactly what they need: a comprehensive, one-stop guide to addressing every facet of social-emotional development, working skillfully with children and families, and improving parents' interactions with their children.

A trusted core textbook since the popular first edition was published in 2002, Pathways to Competence has been fully updated to reflect 6 years of tremendous advances in research. Highly respected expert Sarah Landy, a 20-year veteran of the early intervention field, guides future professionals through the nine most important domains of social and emotional development in children from birth to 6 years. Readers will

• get the most up-to-date research findings on each social and emotional area
• know what social-emotional milestones a child should reach at each age level
• address parents' most common questions about hot topics such as challenging behavior, language development, discipline, play, and feeding and sleeping problems
• get a wide range of simple, concrete strategies and principles to use with children in their care and share with caregivers to promote their children's development in each key area
• guide caregivers with updated exercises and activities that sharpen their parenting skills
• select and use appropriate assessment tools
• understand all the major theories related to social and emotional development
• test their own knowledge with updated discussion questions in each chapter

With its thorough, multifaceted coverage of each domain, this book is the authoritative social-emotional textbook for preservice professionals—and a resource inservice practitioners will use for the rest of their careers to guide parents and answer crucial questions about development. Highly readable and meticulously researched, Pathways to Competence

is the one book every early childhood professional needs to help ensure a lifetime of social-emotional health for all the children they work with.

Dr. Landy is a developmental and specialist clinical psychologist at Family Pathways, Princess Margaret Hospital for Children, Perth, Western Australia. She is also an assistant professor in the department of psychiatry at the University of Toronto and an adjunct professor at York University in Toronto.

Dr. Landy has worked for more than 20 years in the field of early intervention. Among her many published works, she has written several articles and contributed to books on various topics related to the assessment and treatment of infants, young children, and their families, including "Parenting Infants from Birth to Two Years," in Parenting in America (ARC Clio, 2000) with Rosanne Menna; "Assessment and Evaluation in Community Settings," in the World Handbook of Infant Mental Health (John Wiley ©2000); and "Difficult Behaviours: When Your Child Seems Out of Control," from The New Baby and Child Care Encyclopedia (Family Communications, Inc., 1995).

Dr. Landy has been involved in a variety of aspects of early intervention, including program development, program management as director and clinical director, research, consultation, teaching and training, and clinical practice. The programs she has initiated and developed include a tracking system for infants and young children in which mothers and children were assessed for any risks during the children's first 5 years and provided with interventions when necessary. She has also been instrumental in creating developmental services and community-based services for families at psychosocial risk.

Dr. Landy's current interests and activities include assessment and treatment of young children with severe developmental, behavioral, and emotional and social problems of various kinds; intervention with high-risk families with young children; program development; and training. Dr. Landy has long been an advocate for programs that can reach and be relevant for the most at-risk families.

Dr. Osofsky is a psychologist and psychoanalyst and Professor of Pediatrics and Psychiatry at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center (LSUHSC). She is Head of the Division of Pediatric Mental Health. She is also an adjunct professor of Psychology at the University of New Orleans. Dr. Osofsky is Co-Director of the Louisiana Rural Trauma Services Center, a center in the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, and Director of the Harris Center for Infant Mental Health at LSUHSC. She is editor of Children in a Violent Society (Guilford Press, 1997), two editions of the Handbook of Infant Development (Wiley, 1979, 1987), and co-editor of the four-volume WAIMH Handbook of Infant Mental Health, which received the Association of American Publishers/Professional and Scholarly Publishing PROSE Award as the best multivolume reference/science book in 2000. Dr. Osofsky’s edited book, Young Children and Trauma: Intervention and Treatment (2004), includes contributions related to mental health, child welfare, the judiciary, and law enforcement. Dr. Osofsky was editor of the Infant Mental Health Journal from 1998 to 2009.

Dr. Osofsky is Past President of ZERO TO THREE: National Center for Infants, Toddlers, and Families and Past President of the World Association for Infant Mental Health. She served on the Pew Commission for Children in Foster Care. Dr. Osofsky has conducted research, intervention, and clinical work with high psychosocial risk infants, children, and families exposed to maltreatment and community and domestic violence. For the past 18 years, she has been consulting and collaborating with juvenile courts around the country, including the 11th Circuit Juvenile Court in Miami/Dade County, related to the development and evaluation of programs to benefit high-risk young children and families in court. In 2002, she published jointly with two judges and two lawyers a technical assistance brief, Questions Every Judge and Lawyer Should Ask About Infants and Toddlers in the Child Welfare System

(see Appendix A). In 1998, Dr. Osofsky was awarded the Badge of Honor by the New Orleans Police and Justice Foundation for her work with children and families exposed to violence. In 2002, she was awarded the Medal of Honor by the Mayor of New Orleans for her work with the police and the community and the Nicholas Hobbs Award for contributions to public policy by Division 37 of the American Psychological Association. In 2006, she was presented with the Child’s Heart Award by the Juvenile Court Judges of the 11th Judicial Circuit in recognition of her contributions to enhancing the health and well-being of children. Following Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, Dr. Osofsky was asked to serve as Clinical Director for Child and Adolescent Initiatives for Louisiana Spirit for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Mental Health, and the Department of Education. On August 29, 2006, she was honored with a proclamation from the New Orleans City Council recognizing her work helping children and families in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In November 2007, she received the Sarah M. Haley Memorial Award for Clinical Excellence from the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies for her work with trauma. In September 2008, she received an award from LSUHSC for extraordinary effort and commitment during Hurricane Gustav. In June 2009, for their work in schools following Hurricane Katrina, the LSUHSC team from the Department of Psychiatry was awarded a 2009 Distinguished Partners in Education Award by the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education of the State Department of Education. In 2010, Dr. Osofsky was honored with a Presidential Commendation from the American Psychiatric Association for leadership in mental health recovery following Hurricane Katrina and was awarded the distinction of Honorary President of the World Association for Infant Mental Health.