By: Paul H. Dworkin, MD and Sharon Beaudoin As debate rages on as to how best reform our health care system, we ask, “What about our children?” It’s a question likely on the minds of the more than 400 child health advocates gathering in Seattle this week for the 9th annual Help Me Grow National Forum. This…
Connecticut Children’s Healthy Homes Program Celebrates 15 Years
By: Marcus Smith Over the past 15 years, Connecticut Children’s Healthy Homes Program (Healthy Homes) has made a remarkable impact on children and families in Connecticut. To date, Healthy Homes has received more than $30 million in federal funding since 2003, which has allowed us to tap into another $27.5 million in matching grants from…
Supporting Networks of Innovators Addressing Social Needs
By: Jacquelyn M. Rose, MPH As Steven Johnson, author of “Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation” said, “If you look at history, innovation doesn’t come from just giving people incentives; it comes from creating environments where their ideas can connect.” That’s exactly the kind of opportunity the Early Childhood Innovation Prize…
Death in the Back Seat
By: Garry Lapidus, PA-C, MPH There’s no doubt about it, seat belt use among drivers and passengers in vehicles saves lives. However, there’s a gap in Connecticut’s current law that should be fixed. Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia have made it mandatory for adult passengers riding in the back seat of vehicles to…
Ensuring Health Care Access Through Parent Mentors
By: Glenn Flores, MD, FAAP More than 4.8 million American children lack health insurance, which is six percent of our population. Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program have made great strides in getting more children enrolled in public health insurance programs. However, with 72 percent of those uninsured children eligible for such programs, much…
Engaging Early Childhood Providers to Improve Developmental Outcomes
By: Kimberly Martini-Carvell So often, community site visits between our Help Me Grow National Center staff and affiliates exploring and installing Help Me Grow (HMG) include a major focus on those tangible outcomes affiliates hope to achieve through the implementation of their HMG system. Regardless of the community, or the stakeholders engaged in the site…
“What Gets Measured Gets Done” Yet “We Measure What We Treasure”
By: Paul H. Dworkin, MD On February 7, 2018, I was excited to attend a convening organized by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation to identify strategies to build consensus about indicators and measures of child well-being. The eloquent title of the meeting reflected the daunting challenge of the task…
Shifting our Focus from Treatment to Health Promotion
Kolawole Olofinboba, MD is a member of both Connecticut Children’s Board of Directors and Connecticut Children’s Office for Community Child Health Advisory Board. He joins our blog to share his thoughts on promoting health. By: Kolawole Olofinboba, MD As a trained physician, I have always viewed hospitals as places where we treat, and hopefully cure,…
R is for Refugee: A Novel Approach to Mitigating the Impacts of Toxic Stress
By: Erin Cornell, MPH In a proposed reimagining of the classic Sesame Street program, R will stand for Refugee. Recognizing the significant need among children and families both facing and displaced by the conflict in the Middle East, Sesame Workshop and the International Rescue Committee will develop a novel intervention designed to address toxic stress…
Pediatric Payment Reform: Getting More Value from Pediatric Primary Care
This post is part two of a two-part guest blog series on pediatric primary care payment reform efforts in Connecticut. It was authored by Lisa Honigfeld for the Connecticut Health Foundation, an independent private foundation dedicated to achieving health equity. Visit www.cthealth.org to learn more about their work. By: Lisa Honigfeld, PhD Many thanks to the…
Pediatric Payment Reform: Ensuring Healthy Children Become Healthy Adults
This post is part one of a two-part guest blog series on pediatric primary care payment reform efforts in Connecticut. It was authored by Lisa Honigfeld for the Connecticut Health Foundation, an independent private foundation dedicated to achieving health equity. Visit www.cthealth.org to learn more about their work. By: Lisa Honigfeld, PhD A couple years ago,…
Time to Reframe our World View
By: Paul H. Dworkin, MD Spirited debate over immigration policy in our country and controversial comments attributed to our president regarding immigrants’ nations of origin have fueled intense concerns for the international reputation of the United States. Pundits lament a loss of global standing and prestige due to such policies and comments, as well as…