Collaboration promotes healthy families and children. By working together, a cross-sector ECC team comprised of experts in infant/toddler mental health, social-emotional development, and specialists in child welfare are implementing comprehensive research-based approaches benefiting young children and their families in Brevard County. Click the button below for a referral form and start the process now.

Parents participating in Early Childhood Court are key members of the ECC Team along with community partners. This multidisciplinary partnership improves the timeliness, coordination, and effectiveness of services. Parents benefit from community partners providing supportive supervision and specialized services from the multiple professionals working with them.

Parents develop resilience to cope with life challenges, social connections with positive relationships, knowledge of parenting and child development, and concrete support in times of need and after case closure. Children benefit from safe, nurturing home environments and developmental supports to heal and fulfill their potential later in life.

The Honorable Kelly J. McKibben will preside over Early Childhood Court setting aside a special docket for children age three and younger whose parents participate in the program. Judge McKibben is a trauma-trained judicial leader committed to improving the lives of young children and their families by utilizing a collaborative court team to make informed decisions and decrease the length of time to reach permanency. Judicial leadership is key in facilitating better outcomes for young children by improving court procedures. Judge McKibben has many years of judicial experience in the dependency division. She is also the presiding judge for Brevard’s Adult Drug Court, another type of problem-solving court. ECC involves non-adversarial court proceedings utilizing therapeutic jurisprudence. Judge McKibben fosters a child-friendly courtroom, and young children are welcome to attend court hearings with their parents and caregivers. This enables the judge to observe parents and children together, the parents’ attunement to meeting their children’s needs, and children’s attachment relationships. During hearings, Judge McKibben listens to parents and other members of the collaborative multidisciplinary court team who provide expertise on infant mental health and parent/child bonding and attachment. With extensive trauma-responsive experience, Judge McKibben is an ideal member of the judiciary to launch this new court program with the support of community partners.