Dr. Gerry Costa Receives the Weatherston Leadership in Infant Mental Health Award

Dr. Gerry Costa, Director of the Center for Autism and Early Childhood Mental Health, has been selected as the 2021 recipient of the Weatherston Leadership in Infant Mental Health Award by the Alliance for the Advancement of Infant Mental Health.

Dr. Costa is known as one of the foremost experts on professional development in infant and early childhood mental health in the country. He has tirelessly and consistently advocated for babies and their caregivers, some of the most vulnerable of our community, especially focusing on those babies and young children who experience under-resourced conditions. He has worked on the levels of the individual, family, community, national and international to advance policies and practices for the advancement of the field of infant and early childhood mental health. When at state and national level meetings, he can be relied on to be sure that policy and decision makers are using the word ‘infant’ in their discourse, making the point over many years that only using the word ‘children’ allows us to be blind to the needs of infants when we have to ‘open our eyes’ to babies in order to appropriately support their needs. It is through this seemingly small but highly impactful advocacy, as well as 30 years of educating the workforce about the remarkable capacity of babies and the relationship with their caregivers, that Dr. Costa has transformed beliefs, skills, and knowledge in countless numbers of policy makers to focus on relationships in the earliest years.

Dr. Costa was one of the original founding members of the New Jersey Association for Infant Mental Health. He was also personally responsible for reviving NJ-AIMH in 2012 with the purpose of embedding the Endorsement system in New Jersey. In both instances of the NJ-AIMH’s history, he used his relationships to gather a small group of people together and organized us towards action. He was instrumental in securing funds to bring the Competencies and Endorsement system to our state.  Dr. Costa was among the first to be endorsed in New Jersey, earning the Infant Mental Health Mentor-Clinical credential.

The Deborah J. Weatherston Infant Mental Health Leadership Award is dedicated to and named after a woman who has inspired and nurtured many around the world to affirm the baby’s voice, to appreciate the potential of connection, and to be present during those moments that require us to find our own voices so we might listen better to the stories waiting to emerge.

Dr. Costa will receive his award on  November 16, 2021, at the Weatherston Summit for Alliance Leaders.