Bilingual Early Childhood Mental Health Consultant/Clinician (full-time)

POSITION: Early Childhood Mental Health Consultant / Clinician

PROGRAM: Nurture. Educate. Support. Thrive. (NEST)

LANGUAGE REQUIREMENT: Spanish/English Bilingual

SALARY:

• $88k unlicensed($83k base + $5k bilingual)
• $99k licensed ($89k base + $5k bilingual + $5k licensure)

*This position is located in Contra Costa County and is full-time*



The early years - especially from birth to age eight - are a sensitive and foundational period for lifelong learning and well-being. During this time, how a child experiences relationships, regulates emotions, and navigates stress shapes their readiness to thrive in school environments. The Lincoln Families NEST Program (Nurture Educate Support Thrive) supports children, caregivers, and educators by promoting emotional safety, co-regulation, and connection across home and school settings.

Mental Health Consultation: We partner with families and educators in early learning environments to co-create emotionally responsive spaces that support children's capacity to learn, connect, and regulate. Through reflective dialogue and on-site support, we strengthen the adults' ability to respond to behavior through a lens of stress, safety, and development.

Early Intervention: We offer individualized, relationship-centered therapeutic services for young children and their caregivers, with a focus on nurturing connection and strengthening both self- and co-regulation. Our work supports children's emotional development while empowering caregivers with the confidence, tools, and relational capacity to meet their child's evolving needs.

Addressing Disparities in Discipline: A Call for Safety and Equity
Exclusionary discipline starts early-and it is not experienced equally. Even in preschool, children of color, particularly Black children, are suspended and expelled at disproportionately high rates. Although they make up only 18% of preschool enrollment, Black children account for over 40% of all preschool suspensions. These patterns reflect systemic stress and bias, not individual deficits. Research shows that early, relationship-based mental health support can reduce behavioral challenges and support positive developmental outcomes across a child's lifespan.

The Lincoln Approach: Prevention, Partnership, and Possibility
By embedding mental health professionals into early learning environments, we foster collaborative care between educators, caregivers, and children. We focus on prevention, not punishment-partnering with adults to better understand children's behavior, reduce systemic stress, and restore safety across the caregiving system. This foundation allows children to enter school with the emotional tools and relationships they need to thrive.

POSITION SUMMARY: Provide programmatic and child-specific mental health consultation and early intervention to support young children, families, and educators in early childhood education (ECE) settings. Support the early identification of children and families who may benefit from additional services and collaborate with community agencies and providers to coordinate appropriate supports.

ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS:

• Provide programmatic and child-specific mental health consultation to teaching staff, site administrator, and parents.
• Observe children in their ECE classroom setting to assess functioning, relationships with caregivers and other children, and appropriateness of classroom placement.
• Together with teaching staff and families, plan, implement, and monitor specific interventions for individual children or classrooms.
• Regularly consult and communicate with administrators, teachers and family regarding the program and children.
• Provide child specific case consultation to ECE staff to monitor and track the development of young children.
• Administer developmental screenings (ASQ3/ASQ-SE) as needed.
• Assist staff to build and maintain productive and collegial relationships with one another as requested.
• Work collaboratively with clients and other pertinent community partners to provide assessment, develop treatment plans and coordinate appropriate care.
• Assess and intervene in crisis situations to provide appropriate interventions or referrals as needed.
• Provide training and workshops for staff and parents multiple times throughout the year.
• Provide clinical case management services, including coordinating care and communication across agencies and service providers, collaborating with community partners, and identifying and developing resources to support children, families, and staff.
• Document provision of services, assessments, evaluations and treatment goals consistent with clinical and administrative policies and procedures.
• Provide individual and dyadic psychotherapy in school, home, and/or community settings.
• Provide referrals to outside agencies as appropriate and actively assist families with the referral process.
• Participate in team meetings, required outside trainings, and communicate administrative information as needed.
• Participate in weekly individual and group reflective supervision.
• Attend site meetings as appropriate including parent/teacher conferences, IEP, COST and SST meetings.
• Maintain up-to-date clinical records and program logs on all services provided. Requires regular and frequent driving to conduct in-person work, meetings at schools or other sites, and may include travel between multiple work locations in one day. (Consultant must have a valid CA driver's license, personal automobile insurance and satisfactory driving record.)

POSITION REQUIREMENTS: Demonstrated knowledge of and experience working with young children, families, and communities impacted by trauma, including an understanding of how trauma and chronic stress affect early childhood development. Strong understanding of early childhood development, including social-emotional development, attachment, separation, and the role of relationships and early experiences in shaping development. Experience assessing young children's social-emotional and developmental needs and identifying appropriate supports and interventions. Understanding of early childhood education (ECE) settings, culture, and communities, along with knowledge of community resources and the ability to connect children and families with appropriate services. Demonstrated cultural humility and ability to work effectively with individuals and families from diverse backgrounds, recognizing and building upon their unique strengths, experiences, and perspectives. Ability to navigate complex and emotionally sensitive situations with empathy, professionalism, and sound clinical judgment. Strong interpersonal, communication, and collaboration skills, with the ability to work both independently and as part of a multidisciplinary team across multiple school sites. Ability to integrate infant and early childhood mental health principles and practices into classroom, group, and program-wide settings. Some evening hours required based on client need.

EXPERIENCE AND EDUCATION:

• Masters degree (MSW/MFT) or Doctorate degree (Ph.D/Psy.D) in Psychology, Social Work, Counseling or related field.
• Prior experience working collaboratively as part of a multidisciplinary team.
• Prior clinical experience working with young children (birth-five years) and families strongly preferred.
• Experience providing mental health consultation within a school or childcare setting is strongly preferred.
• Bi-lingual Spanish required with ability to provide consultation and psychotherapy in Spanish.
• Basic-to-intermediate computer proficiency.

• SALARY:
  • $88k unlicensed ($83k base + $5k bilingual)
  • $99k licensed ($89k base + $5k bilingual + $5k licensure)

• Time Off: 4 weeks of vacation, 18 sick days and 11 holidays (including 2 flex holiday); Vacation and sick time begin accruing from day one of employment.
• Benefits: medical, dental and vision with 90-95% employer subsidy for employee premiums; we also offer 50% for dependents. Additional Benefits include flexible spending accounts (FSA), life insurance, disability insurance, commuter benefits, retirement & pension plans.
• Equity at Lincoln Families: we currently have an Employee Equity Council, a Management Equity Team and staff-run Affinity Groups.
• Wellness: Lincoln Families encourages and supports wellness for all employees so that staff are able to sustain themselves in this work and better serve our families. Staff create self-care plans and receive funding they can use each year towards those plans. Employees also have 1-3 hours of paid time per week for wellness activities.
• Professional Development/Training: Each year, employees can be reimbursed for expenses related professional licensing and other fees, as well as for professional development opportunities. Employees who have been at Lincoln Families for one year are also eligible to participate in advanced training series.
• Student Loan Forgiveness: We are a recognized 501(c)(3) nonprofit approved site. By working with Lincoln Families, staff are eligible for Public Service Loan Forgiveness.