Dr. Libby Zimmerman, the founding Executive Director of Connected Beginnings Training Institute, passed away on August 9th, after a yearlong battle with cancer.
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Because of her professional reputation and passion for promoting Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health, the United Way of the Massachusetts Bay & Merrimack Valley selected Dr. Zimmerman to lead one of its flagship initiatives, the Connected Beginnings Training Institute. Since its creation in 2006, Dr. Zimmerman provided vision and focus to the organization’s work. The Institute’s vision– that every child will start life with loving, responsive, and affirming relationships with parents and caregivers to provide a healthy foundation for life-long learning and connections with other people– captures the essence of her professional contribution to the field and is Dr. Zimmerman’s lasting legacy.
Her commitment to improving the lives of children and their families has had a major impact on professional development in the field of research-based infant mental health. Dr. Zimmerman’s work has affected infant and early childhood practice in many and varied settings including Early Intervention, child-care, Head Start and Early Head Start and has influenced public policy in infant and children’s mental health.
Dr. Zimmerman’s published research explores how infants develop relationships with their parents, child care teachers, and other caretakers. She was known nationally and internationally for her workshops and presentations on how the dynamic interactions between practitioners, babies, caregivers, and culture influence infant-toddler social and emotional well-being. In collaboration with Massachusetts Early Intervention program leaders at Thom Child & Family Services, she developed IN-TIME, a 36-hour professional development course in infant mental health, designed for Early Intervention practitioners.
Before founding Connected Beginnings, Dr. Zimmerman was a Senior Early Childhood Associate with the Early Head Start Resource Center at Zero To Three, consulting to staff in the Federal Administration for Children and Families on enhancing Early Head Start and child care programs in the New England Region. In that position she was the lead writer for Pathways to Prevention, a guide for integrating infant mental health principles into agency practices.
Dr. Zimmerman, who held a PhD from the Heller School for Social Policy and Management, Brandeis University and an MSW from the University of Michigan, was on the faculty of the Boston University School of Social Work from 1987-2000. For much of that time she was chairperson for the Human Behavior Sequence and together with others started an influential multi-disciplinary course on infant development. She was a founding member and a psychotherapist on the staff of Focus, Counseling and Consultation, Inc. in Cambridge from 1973 to 2009. From 2005-2008 she was a Visiting Scholar in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Development at Tufts University.
Libby Zimmerman was a beloved colleague, mentor and teacher, a friend and champion to babies, young children and their families. Her family has asked that memorial contributions be made to:
Connected Beginnings Training Institute
c/o United Way of Mass. Bay & Merrimack Valley
51 Sleeper Street
Boston, Massachusetts 02210-1208
Attention: Peg Sprague.