Judson Center will launch a new infant mental health pilot in Oakland County with support from the Detroit-based Ethel and James Flinn Foundation, positioning the nonprofit to focus on families navigating child welfare involvement and families facing high-risk stressors tied to poverty and trauma.
Flinn’s 2025 grant announcement lists Judson Center as a recipient of $75,000 to pilot the “Our Early Years” Infant Mental Health Program, part of a slate of 60 grants totaling $3 million awarded across southeast Michigan. Judson Center, in its announcement, described the funding as a two-year, $150,000 grant for the pilot, a structure that suggests the investment is spread across two years while Flinn’s public list reflects the 2025 grant amount.
Judson Center President and CEO Lenora Hardy-Foster said the Oakland County pilot will concentrate on families connected to the child welfare system and families “at risk due to adversities such as poverty or trauma,” with a goal centered on caregiver-child relationships. The program is designed to help parents and caregivers repair relationships with their children, strengthen emotional and developmental well-being for very young children, and improve family stability.
Flinn Foundation President and CEO Andrea Cole said the foundation’s grantmaking is aimed at expanding services while strengthening the mental health system across the region.
“Our investment in their work is an investment in healthier individuals, stronger families and more resilient communities,” Cole said.
The emphasis on infants and caregivers lands at a moment when Michigan data continues to underline how early adversity shapes health across a lifetime. The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services reports adverse childhood experiences are widespread, with 68% of Michigan adults and 58% of Michigan youth reporting one or more ACEs. Michigan Infant and early childhood mental health specialists also define the work as social and emotional development from birth to age 3, grounded in the relationship between child and caregiver.
Child welfare trends reinforce why very young children remain a critical focus. Federal child welfare outcomes data shows that in Michigan, children under age 1 made up 11.0% of child victims in 2023, reflecting how often harm and instability show up during a child’s first year of life.
Judson Center’s announcement arrives with another Flinn Foundation recognition tied to leadership sustainability across a strained system. Hardy-Foster was selected as one of four recipients of the foundation’s 2025 Leonard W. Smith “Mental Health Hero” Award, which recognizes leaders navigating the daily complexity of community mental health work. The award provides $25,000 to the honoree’s organization, with $10,000 designated for the leader to take two months away to reflect and renew, and $15,000 for operational support and staffing needs while the leader is out.
Hardy-Foster said the recognition pushed her to reflect on more than 40 years in the nonprofit sector and the kind of work that rarely makes headlines until a family is already in crisis. She said being honored for impact in the community felt rewarding and personal.
“Any time you’re recognized for the work you’ve done and the impact you’ve made in the community, it’s extremely rewarding,” she said. “I never expected this to be my career path, but making a difference in the lives of children, adults and families has always brought me deep gratification.”
Flinn’s mission is centered on advancing “effective, well-researched best practice” mental health treatment and programs across Michigan, with stated values that include equity, dignity, and measuring impact. Its history traces back to its 1976 establishment by Ethel “Peggy” W. Flinn and a family legacy shaped by lived experience with serious mental illness and long-term care.
For families raising babies while navigating investigations, unstable housing, violence, or untreated trauma, an infant mental health pilot can succeed or fail based on access and consistency. That means who gets referred, how quickly services start, whether care is home-based when transportation collapses, and whether parents feel respected while doing the hardest work of their lives: showing up for a child while carrying their own scars.
Judson Center says Our Early Years will focus on that exact pressure point, with a model built to support caregivers early, before the gaps widen and the cost is paid by a child who has not yet learned the words for what they are living through.
