Winter 2007

 Coming Your Way:
 A New Resource for Linking Families with Needed Services
Kay DeGarmo

Identifying young children at risk for developmental, behavioral, or social-emotional disabilities seems to accomplish little if the child has no access to follow-up services. Health care providers are often reluctant to adopt practices to screen young children unless they are confident that the children they identify will actually receive assistance.

Iowa Early ACCESS has been a consistent source of services for children who have or are at high-risk for developmental problems. Now Iowa Empowerment and a number of community public health agencies are developing services geared toward at-risk children and families. However, finding, tracking, and matching families to services is a complex and time consuming task that can be difficult to handle within the office practice setting.

Iowa’s ABCD II Healthy Mental Development Initiative examined referral patterns and tested a public-private partnership model to link children with appropriate community services. The next issue of this newsletter will highlight what participants learned as they tested this partnership model in demonstration sites, and offer information about a new resource that health providers statewide can use to link families to resources.