Funded Projects

Problem:

The purpose of Maternal and Child Health Consortium's (MCHC) proposed Family Health Promotion Initiative (FHPI) is to increase awareness of and access to health care and prevention services in Chester County, Pennsylvania among underserved children and families. FHPI would be a new component of existing outreach and home-visiting activities, essentially training and equipping home-visiting staff with Bright Futures tools to introduce content to participant families and reflecting the concepts in outreach materials and at events with stakeholders and consumers. FHPI would use Bright Futures guides to inform MCHC's existing evidence-based practices from the Parents as Teachers (PAT) model. Currently, MCHC employs PAT under the Healthy Start and Family Center home-visiting programs. PAT is a HomVEE approved model that helps parents of children ages 0-5 years-old enhance their parenting skills, identify stressors, and overcome challenges and barriers to wellness to promote optimal child development and prevent child abuse and neglect. MCHC's work as well as the breadth of PAT has demonstrated effectiveness in reducing health disparities among underserved populations in Chester County, specifically Black and Latina women and children. Home-visiting staff include several components within each home-visit, whether it be health screenings, what to expect, parent-child activities, chronic disease prevention education, referrals, health insurance and benefits enrollment, and other social service needs. Bright Futures will serve as a valuable, complimentary tool used to educate families and support coordination among partner agencies, both medical and nonmedical. This initiative will support activities carried out by MCHC's Manager of Health Outreach and Community Relations, Director of Development and Communications, and Director of Programs for Healthy Start and Family Benefits, who will implement Bright Futures curriculum into existing home-visiting program tools, train staff, and enhance awareness of local prevention services among underserved communities. This work will be informed and supported by an Advisory Board of MCH professionals. The Family Health Promotion Initiative at Maternal and Child Health Consortium will support health risk prevention service delivery, approach, and outreach benefitting upwards of 5,000 low-income families across the Chester County, PA region every year who are at-risk of adverse health outcomes.

Goals and Objectives:

(1) Increase awareness of and access to health care and risk prevention among underserved children and families in partnership with other community-serving agencies. (2) Provide home-visiting and group health education and health risk assessments to high-risk families using evidence-based tools.

Methodology:

Since 1991, MCHC has provided home-visiting services for low-income families with children ages 0-5 years-old using the evidence-based Parents as Teachers model to provide health education, health risk assessments and support, and activities that support early childhood development activities. MCHC will leverage this infrastructure and our partnerships with other agencies that serve maternal and child populations to ensure that at-risk families and children have the resources that they need to support their health and access health care. The initiative aims to strengthen MCHC's holistic approach to helping families build the foundation for healthy lives. This includes increasing awareness of and access to community-based social services, identifying child developmental delays, increasing access to routine medical care and healthy food, improving health education delivery, and ultimately reducing health disparities among underserved families. Families enrolled in MCHC home-visiting programs and group sessions will incorporate the American Academy of Pediatrics' Bright Futures curriculum into activities and outreach.

Coordination:

MCHC will partner with other maternal and child health-serving agencies to inform the activities of the initiative.

Evaluation:

MCHC will collect data on program participants including health screening results and number served (maternal depression, ACEs, ASQ-3, health insurance and public benefits coverage, referrals, workshop surveys etc.) and outreach events attended. Advisory Board engagement will be evaluated annually. Program participants will be surveyed to measure increased knowledge and parenting skills before and after enrollment.