Kadija Johnston LCSW is a clinical social worker who has been a practitioner in the field of infant and early childhood mental health (IECMH) since 1985. She is an independent consultant and Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University’s Center for Child and Human Development where she is contributing her expertise and experience in early childhood mental health consultation to the SAMHSA supported Center of Excellence for IECMH Consultation and the National Center for Health, Behavioral Health and Safety. Ms. Johnston is the past Director of the Infant- Parent Program at the University of California, San Francisco where she pioneered an approach to IECMH Consultation that serves as a model for other organizations, locally, nationally, and internationally. Ms. Johnston is active in several national early childhood mental health organizations, including being a founding member of the Reflective Supervision Collaborative and RAINE, a Southwest Human Development sponsored group of national experts advancing practice, policy and research in ECMH Consultation. She writes and lectures nationally on infant and early childhood mental health related topics. In addition to numerous articles, she co-authored the book Mental Health Consultation in Child Care: Transforming Relationships With Directors, Staff, and Families. In the final phase of her professional journey, Kadija is committed, and devoting energy to authentically instilling equity, diversity, and inclusion principles with greater intentionality and more explicitly in all her endeavors. To this end, she is currently co-facilitating several communities of practice and providing webinars directed at the intersection of equity and IECMH Consultation practice. She is a national trainer on the Diversity-Informed Tenets for Work with Infants, Children, and Families
