Miami Children's Initiative: Funders Collaborative

MIAMI CHILDREN’S INITIATIVE EARLY CHILDHOOD COMPHREHENSIVE SYSTEMS (ECCS) COLLABORATIVE IMPROVEMENT AND INNOVATION NETWORKS (COIINs) SUBMITTED TO THE FUNDERS COLLABORATIVE

Period covered: December 2017

Program Overview ECCS CoIIN is a joint initiative of Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB) and the National Institute for Children’s Health Quality (NICHQ) for a twelve-state project to strengthen early childhood systems of care using a Collective Impact framework.

Our primary aim is to show a 25% increase in age-appropriate developmental skills in Liberty City’s three (3) year old children by July 2021. To do this, the ECCS CoIIN will work to:  Strengthen leadership and expertise in continuous quality improvement (CQI);  Achieve greater collective impact in early childhood systems at the state, county, and community level;  Develop two-generation approaches to drive integration of early childhood services vertically and horizontally;  Develop and adopt core sets of indicators to measure Early Childhood (EC) system processes and outcome indicators to measure population impact around children’s developmental health and family well-being;  Test innovative early childhood systems change ideas, develop spread strategies, and adopt policies for sustaining systems.

December 2017

Developmental Screening Activities in Childcare Background:

We’ve recognized that there is a population in early care and education programs who may not be screened for developmental concerns. This population could include: 1. Children in School Readiness (SR) sites, who are private pay may not be developmentally screened since there are no 3rd party requirements for this group.

Additionally, social emotional screening may only be happening routinely for any children.

2. Children in private pay schools (schools who do not accept SR subsidy) may not be developmentally screened on an ongoing basis since they too are not required to by any 3rd party. We believe that these schools may not exist in Liberty City, but we will confirm this through an upcoming “test”—work for the project.

3. *Children not in early care and education programs may not be developmentally screened.

Some providers have confirmed that screening is only occurring for their subsidized population. To understand if this is consistently occurring throughout Liberty City and learn about screening practices in general we will be surveying Liberty City early care and education programs. This information will be used to create a targeted plan to support optimal developmental screening practices for all children, regardless of funding stream.

Plan for the Work/Activities Completed: In our first “test” we are in the second stage of Plan-Do-Study-Act in the Continuous Improvement Cycle, based on completing the following activities:

Previously we completed the following activities: 1. Obtaining an updated list of all the early care and education programs operating in Liberty City. (completed).

2. Refining the survey provided by the University of South Florida to obtain all the information needed to strengthen developmental and social/emotional screening practices for all children, including private pay students. a. ECCS Core Team will review and edit survey (completed); b. ECCS COIIN Team will review and edit survey (completed); 3. Facilitated a focus Group with childcare directors and owners to edit the survey (completed); 4. Created a distribution and follow-up plan for the survey (completed); 5. Identified a platform for distribution of the online survey (completed); 6. Finalized the survey based on input from the Core Team, COIIN Team, Data Team, MCI Staff and childcare Owners (completed); 7. Identified items to incentive survey completion (completed).

This month we: 1. Distributed the survey to 42 Liberty City childcare centers/homes (completed); 2. Follow-up with individual centers to support completion of the survey (ongoing).

In the month of December, we’ve received 18 completed surveys out of 42, representing a 43% completion rate.

In the upcoming months we anticipate completing the following activities: 1. Conducting outreach to individual programs to support them in completing the survey (Jan 2018); 2. Analyze the results of the survey (Jan/Feb 2018); 3. Create short-term and long-term solutions to address results of the survey (Jan -Mar 2018).

*Please note, we are beginning to address population #3 with the Books, Balls and Blocks event, denoted below.

Autism Navigator Screening Project Background: The Center for Autism and Related Disabilities (CARD) at the University of Miami (UM) is collaborating with researchers around the country on a multi-site study. A collaboration of five universities (Florida State University, Emory University, Drexel University, Weill Cornell Medical College and UM) has received a five-year grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIH/NIMH) to determine the effectiveness of utilizing a system of community providers to improve early identification efforts.

Project Goal: Mobilize community service systems to improve family engagement in screening and identification of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and linkage to early intervention services in the first two years of life.

Plan for the Work/Activities Completed:

In this “test” we are in the first stage of Plan-Do-Study-Act in the Continuous Improvement Cycle, based on completing the following planning activities: a. Meeting with UM project coordinator to discuss details of the project and the study (completed); b. Meeting with MCI staff to determine who would use the Autism Navigator tool (completed); c. Introduce UM to other community partners, such as Help Me Grow who might be interested in the study (completed); d. Coordinate training for MCI staff on the Autism Navigator (completed); e. Draft an integration plan on how to introduce Liberty City childcare centers to the study based on ‘readiness’ as defined by already adhering to best practices using the Ages and Stages Questionnaire (completed).

In the upcoming months we anticipate completing the following activities: a. Complete training activities on the Autism Navigator for necessary MCI staff (Jan 2018); b. Begin screening activities at MCI’s community space (Jan 2018); c. Support recruitment efforts of a minimum of 4 Liberty City childcare centers to participate in the study (Feb 2018); d. Assess project strengths and opportunities so mid-course corrections can take place (Mar 2018); e. Support recruitment efforts of an additional 4 Liberty City childcare centers to participate in the study (May 2018).

Books, Balls and Blocks Event (developmental screening event) Background:

Recognizing we have children in our community who are not being routinely screened, we’ve started planning an interim solution to support this population. Help Me Grow’s developmental screening event, Books, Balls and Blocks (BBB) aligns with our efforts to ensure all children are developmentally screened and have access to community supports. These events are based on four key components: a. COMMUNITY OUTREACH: Children and families are given information to connect them to relevant community services. b. CHILD HEALTH CARE PROVIDER OUTREACH: Parents are given an opportunity to allow HMG staff to share their child’s developmental screening results directly with the child’s primary health care provider. c. CENTRALIZED TELEPHONE ACCESS POINT: BBBs are attended by HMG Care Coordinators, who can connect families directly to HMG services. d. DATA COLLECTION: Staff track the number of children and families served, which contributes to the strength of HMG’s aggregate data.

For children who are not currently enrolled in an early learning program, this event not only ensures children are screened, it also provides supports to the families, according to the Strengthening Families paradigm, such as: a. KNOWLEDGE OF PARENTING & CHILD DEVELOPMENT: Parents are provided with accurate information about child development and are given ideas of appropriate expectations for children’s behavior and developmental stages. b. SOCIAL & EMOTIONAL COMPETENCE OF CHILDREN: Children interact positively with others, self-regulate behavior, and effectively communicate feelings.

c. SOCIAL CONNECTIONS: Parents are able to meet other parents with children their child’s age and can interact in ways that give them positive feelings about themselves and their community. d. PARENTAL RESILIENCE: Parents are strengthened in their role as their child’s first health care provider, teacher, and playmate. e. CONCRETE SUPPORT IN TIMES OF NEED: Parents are given information on local resources that can help meet the needs of their child and family. Parents are empowered to be their child’s strongest advocate.

Plan for the Work/Activities Completed: In this “test” we are in the first stage of Plan-Do-Study-Act in the Continuous Improvement Cycle, based on completing the following planning activities: a. Identify and book an appropriate venue (completed); b. Finalize the date and time of the event with partners/the venue (completed); c. Create an outreach strategy to ensure the appropriate population attends (completed); d. Draft an event flyer (completed); e. Draft event evaluation questions (completed); f. Identify manipulatives and books that can be given to families who participate (completed); g. Explore options to provide light snacks for event participants (completed).

In the a. b. c.

upcoming months we anticipate completing the following activities: Finalize and distribute the event flyer (Jan 2018); Market the event with Liberty city residents and childcare centers (Jan 2018); Finalize event survey questions with assistance from the University of South Florida (Jan 2018); d. Complete day-of logistic plan (Jan 2018); e. Assess the event survey results (February 2018).