Cross-Sector Allies Together in the Struggle for Social Justice: Diversity-Informed Tenets for Work with Infants, Children, and Families

The Diversity-Informed Infant Mental Health Tenets (St. John, Thomas, Noroña, & Irving Harris Foundation Professional Development Network Tenets Working Group, 2012) synthesized efforts to integrate principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion into the infant and early childhood mental health field. The Tenets were born of a recognition that social forces conspire to interfere with the capacity of some groups of children and families to thrive. The Tenets are a response to the persistent and urgent need to expand our professional capacity and deepen our work with families by increasing awareness and developing intentional action for individual, organizational, and systemic change. This article presents a revised and expanded edition of the Tenets. The authors introduce a new name--Diversity-Informed Tenets for Work with Infants, Children, and Families--and describe the productive struggles, deepened understandings, sustaining alliances, and critical insights that brought this edition into being.