MIAMI CHILDREN’S INITIATIVE EARLY CHILDHOOD COMPHREHENSIVE SYSTEMS (ECCS) COLLABORATIVE IMPROVEMENT AND INNOVATION NETWORKS (COIINs) SUBMITTED TO THE FUNDERS COLLABORATIVE May 2018
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. May 2018 Comprehensive Autism Strategy Background: Miami Children’s Initiative (MCI) has entered into a study with the Center for Autism and Related Disabilities (CARD) at the University of Miami (UM). This study will focus on identifying autism in infants and toddlers so supports can be provided at the earliest ages. Black children are often diagnosed with autism in adolescence (missing years of potential intervention and treatment), as such, MCI thought it was imperative to align our ECCS work with efforts to identify young children with autism. 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: To support the goal of mobilizing 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; activities that were previously completed:
1. Meeting with UM project coordinator to discuss details of the project and the study (completed); 2. Meeting with MCI staff to determine who would use the Autism Navigator tool (completed); 3. Introduce UM to other community partners, such as Help Me Grow who might be interested in the study (completed); 4. Coordinating a training for MCI staff on the Autism Navigator (completed); 5. Drafting 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); 6. Participating in training activities on the Autism Navigator screening tool (completed); 7. Executing an agreement to officially enter the project as a research participant (completed): 8. Re-executing an agreement at University of Miami’s request (completed); 9. Creating a procedure manual for the project so all key staff members know project expectations, this will also be used when it’s time to spread the initiative (completed); 10. Rolling-out screening activities at MCI’s community space (completed); 11. Creating a plan on how to increase the number of black children screened for ASD (completed); 12. Assessing project strengths and opportunities so mid-course corrections can take place (completed). 13. Meeting with other community partners who have been trained in the Navigator to create unified network of screeners (completed); 14. Assessed the project efforts to date and decided to (completed): a. Poll early care and education programs to gauge their interest in offering the Navigator using their existing staff versus having a third-party administrator (completed); b. Creating an outline of how to streamline Navigator administration with other community partners and early care and education programs to ensure we are not duplicating services, while blanketing the community (completed). This month we: 1. Outlining the 2nd phase of this cycle, to include a comprehensive plan that also includes children beyond the 30-month limit of the original project (on-going). 2. Supporting recruitment efforts of 4 Liberty City childcare centers to participate in Autism screening activities, in alignment with the community partner plan, so we are not duplicating efforts, this included: a. Meeting with the four identified schools and sharing the opportunity with them and the lessons we’ve learned from our participation in the research project (completed); b. Connecting the schools to the research partner (completed); c. The research partner will meet with each school individually to go over their specific questions and concerns to aid in their decision-making process (started in May, to be completed in June).
In the upcoming months we anticipate: 1. Continue to support recruitment efforts to ensure there is adequate screening in Liberty City (June 2018); 2. If new partners join the study, work with them to outline and document catchment areas for screening (June/July 2018). Social Emotional Supports Background: To explore how to provide social emotional supports for children in Liberty City while not unintentionally deeming a disproportionate amount of the population with behavioral challenges. The need for services was originally illuminated by early care and education programs in the developmental/social emotional screening survey Liberty City schools completed. To ensure we are providing supports in a culturally appropriate way will examine: teacher/assessor bias, teacher’s knowledge of child development, reason families are not consenting to having their children participate in social emotional services and alignment amongst the multiple community partners who are contracted to provide this service, but currently do not have clients enrolled. The System Alignment Subcommittee is still designing (developing) this cycle and to date have determined this cycle will include: 1. Identify a list of schools who have expressed the need for social emotional supports (completed); 2. Identify a list of providers and services who could provide social emotional support for LC schools (completed); 3. Identify professional development opportunities for LC educators (completed); 4. Execute an MOU with Jewish Community Services to provide play therapy and professional development trainings in Liberty City (completed); 5. Create a comprehensive plan to address the behavioral needs of children (May 2018); 6. Start play therapy pilot with Shining Light Child Development Center (May 2018); 7. Schedule professional development opportunities for teacher (July 2018). Additional components of this cycle will include: 1. Create a plan to explore the underlying reasons why service providers contracted to provide services in Liberty City are not doing so, this examination must include racial bias (July 2018); 2. Create a comprehensive plan to address the behavioral needs of children (ongoing); a. Must include how to address bias; b. Needs to include 2-generation approaches, caregivers must have a role; 3. Create a plan to explore why schools feel like there is a disproportionately high number of kids with behavioral reasons, to date reasons have included: number of children who have unaddressed trauma, teacher education of developmental milestones and not accounting for gender differences (July 2018); 4. Schedule professional development opportunities for teacher (July 2018). The June/July 2018 report will have additional detail on this cycle.