Through the Title V Maternal and Child Health (MCH) Block Grant, we enhance and support child and youth health and well-being.
Specific programs strengthen:
The experiences and situations that young people face have a big effect on their overall well-being. Their health care, relationships, and economic situations all play a role in how they grow physically, mentally, and socially. These factors shape their development and have a lasting impact on their lives.
Our approach
Our commitment is to address the needs of youth, including those needs that already exist, as well as emerging and emergency needs. We collaborate with government, state, and local groups to improve the systems for all children.
We place emphasis on ensuring that children and youth with special health care needs receive equal access to care, just like any other child. Also, we help teenagers transition to young adult health services.
Through our investments, we strive to improve access to health care within school systems, making it easier for young people to receive the care they need in a familiar and convenient setting.
We spur national guidelines for checkups, ensuring that health care providers follow consistent standards. We also work toward making behavioral health care a regular part of these checkups. We are aware that most teenagers do not currently receive preventive medical visitsi. Our goal is to change this.
Our complementary programs promote better health outcomes by:
- Emphasizing prevention, screenings, referrals, and specialty services
- Investing in health and mental health promotion and injury and violence prevention
- Expanding school-based mental and physical health services
- Using technology to increase access to health care through telehealth
- Facilitating children and youth's access to health insurance
- Ensuring access to age-appropriate safety net emergency services for children
- Providing child-, youth-, and family-centered, culturally- and linguistically-appropriate, community-based services
- Supporting the development of tools and resources to reduce differences in outcomes
- Training Maternal and Child Health (MCH) leaders and the MCH workforce to address the unique needs of children and youth
- With our committed partners, our programs improve systems of services, including for children and youth with special health care needs.
Our investments
- National Adolescent and Young Adult Health Information Center – National Resource Center
- Bright Futures
- Children's Healthy Weight State Capacity Building Program
- Comprehensive Systems Integration for Adolescent and Young Adult Health (CSI-AYAH)
- Enhancing the System of Services for Children and Youth with Special Health Care Needs (CYSHCN) through Systems of Integration
- Emergency Medical Services for Children
- Healthy Tomorrows
- Infant, Child, and Adolescent Preventive Services (ICAPS) Program
- Leadership Education in Adolescent Health
- Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities (LEND) (PDF)
- National Adolescent and Young Adult Health Information Center
- National Center for a System of Services for CYSCHN
- National Coordinating Committee on School Health and Safety
- National Maternal and Child Oral Health Resource Center
- Networks for Oral Health Integration (NOHI) Within the Maternal and Child Health Safety Net (2019 archived Notice of Funding Opportunity)
- Nutrition
- Pediatric Pulmonary Centers
- Regional Pediatric Pandemic Network
- Transition for Youth with Autism and/or Epilepsy
Our Keeping Children Safe webpage explains this portfolio of investments:
Gathering Data and Tracking Progress
We gather program and national data to track progress.
We gather program and national data to track progress.
- National Performance Measures (NPMs), including developmental screening and adolescent well-visits
- National Outcome Measures (NOMs), including SUID mortality, child mortality, adolescent mortality, and adolescent suicide
Our National Survey of Children's Health (NSCH) serves as the data source for over half of our NPMs (9 of 15) and a quarter of our NOMs (7 of 25).
Date Last Reviewed: