Due to the increase in the frequency of mental pathology in the child population the issues of preventing mental disorders and protecting the mental health of early age children are becoming particularly relevant. To substantiate a new interdisciplinary direction of scientific and practical research-preventive psychiatry of early childhood and to identify priority areas for its development. The problems that arise when working with young children are analyzed. Algorithms for identifying deviations in mental development in young children and the gradual participation of psychiatrists in the interdepartmental provision of early care to children with the proposed author’s diagnostic methods and methodological approaches are presented. The author substantiates the need to identify a new direction — early childhood psychiatry and identifies its main interdisciplinary areas, including: analysis of risk factors and prediction of developmental deviations, identification of children at risk; medical examinations, identification and diagnosis of developmental disorders in young children, the introduction of innovative diagnostic methods; dynamic monitoring of identified children at risk and assistance by an interdisciplinary team of specialists; support for families raising children at risk; training of specialists.