Healthy Steps for Young ChildrenSM

E-UPDATE

April 2006 Issue
(Printable Version)

Stories


Communications Industry Group Lauds Healthy Steps Brochure

The Healthy Steps brochure, “A Step in the Right Direction,” just received the Award of Distinction from The Communicator Awards, an international awards competition that recognizes outstanding work in the communications field. The award recognizes work that exceeds a high standard of excellence and serves as a benchmark for the industry.

The Healthy Steps brochure is notable for the toddler-with-mom photo on the cover, the bright colors, and the easy to read content. Healthy Steps sites can have copies free of charge and can use the brochure’s art work and content, under appropriate circumstances (as seen in the photo accompanying the article on Swope Health Center in this issue). If you would like copies or to discuss use of the art or the copy, please contact Healthy Steps Director Mike Barth at mbarth@icfi.com.

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Maternal Depression Correlates with Parenting Practices

In a new study, Healthy Steps researchers examined whether maternal depressive symptoms, as reported when infants are two to four months old, are associated with mothers’ early parenting practices. Data collected from the landmark National Evaluation of Healthy Steps for Young Children were based on newborn enrollment questionnaires and parent interviews. Although mothers with depressive symptoms reported similar uses of safety and feeding practices with their newborns, these mothers had reduced odds of continuing breastfeeding, showing books, playing with or talking to their infants, and following routines. The authors concluded that maternal depressive symptoms contribute to unfavorable parenting practices, adding to the evidence on the importance of early screening for maternal depression for both children and mothers. (“Maternal Depressive Symptoms at 2 to 4 Months Post Partum and Early Parenting Practices,” McLearn, K. T., PhD; Minkovitz, C. S., MD, MPP; Strobino, D. M., PhD; Marks, E., MPH; Hou, W., MS , Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, 160 (3), pp. 279-284, March 2006.)

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New Software Available for Healthy Steps Sites

New software is available that can help Healthy Steps programs track information about Healthy Steps families. The software, Healthy Steps Tracker, was designed to facilitate efficient record keeping and service tracking in the Healthy Steps office. The software allows a site to quickly generate professional reports for boards, funding institutions, and health insurance payers. The more data-rich information you can provide to funders and payers showing progress of your families and the benefits of Healthy Steps to your practice, the more likely you will be to gain new funding or continue to receive funding from existing sources and to obtain reimbursement.

The Healthy Steps Tracker was designed in conjunction with BlueCross BlueShield-sponsored Healthy Steps sites in Kansas City and is being successfully used at Kansas City sites and at the Miami Beach Community Health Center. While the national Healthy Steps Program Office is not promoting this software, we do suggest you consider it. If you would like a test copy free of charge, please contact Laura Ruether of DataKeeper Technologies, LLC, the software developer, at 1-800-532-7148 or at LauraR@data-keeper.com.

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Healthy Steps Keeps Growing, and Growing...

Several new Healthy Steps sites are up and running! One has started at the Miami Beach Community Health Center, a Federally Qualified Health Center. Four new pediatrics residency training sites have opened; three in North Carolina and one in Arizona. In North Carolina, the new residency training sites are located at Carolinas Medical Center – Charlotte, Duke Children’s Primary Care, and the Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center. In Arizona, the new site is at Mayo Clinic – Thunderbird Family Medicine Residency Training in Scottsdale.

This continued expansion of Healthy Steps is a testament to the compelling nature of the program and its benefits to families and pediatric practices. Healthy Steps works because it offers both parents and practitioners what they need: parents receive useful, timely information on their children’s development and clinicians are provided the opportunity to enhance the quality of care they deliver to young children.

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Swope Expands Healthy Steps

In February, 2006, Swope Health Services of Kansas City, Missouri, which is a Federally Qualified Health Center, held a kick-off event to announce its expanded Healthy Steps Program to the community. (See September 2005 E-Update for background.) Speakers at the event included Janice Ellis, PhD, the President of the Kansas City Partnership for Children; Mike Barth, National Director of Healthy Steps; two Healthy Steps moms; and members of the Healthy Steps Program Team.

In an interview with the Kansas City Star published on the day of the kick-off event, Dr. Ellis said Kansas City needed to focus on medical care for its young. In the five-county Kansas City area, only 73 percent of children were fully immunized by age 2 in 2004, down from 85 percent in 2003. Dr. Ellis wants that number to reach 95 percent by 2010 and she is confident Healthy Steps can help. Healthy Steps increases immunizations by providing greater continuity of care. As part of the announcement of its expansion of Healthy Steps, Swope used Healthy Steps art to produce a poster and the bus advertisement seen nearby.

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Healthy Steps Workshop: Dissemination in Residency Training Programs

In March, 2006, NICHQ's 5th Annual Forum for Improving Children’s Health Care, in Orlando, Florida offered a workshop, “Healthy Steps Dissemination in Residency Training Programs in North Carolina, Arizona, California, and Illinois,” designed to provide participants with strategies to spread improvements in developmental and behavioral care for young children. Presenters from four Healthy Steps Residency Training sites that have successfully implemented Healthy Steps and now are disseminating the approach within their states, described their efforts, including dissemination to all residency programs in North Carolina and offering Healthy Steps training to community healthcare workers including daycare centers, Early Head Start, and Head Start.

Presenters at the workshop were Sandy Fuller, an original Healthy Steps Specialist, who has coordinated the growth of Healthy Steps to include all the pediatrics residency training programs in North Carolina; Dr. Greg Randolph of the Center for Children’s Healthcare Improvement at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill; DeAnn Davies, Healthy Steps Specialist at Phoenix Children’s Hospital and Program Coordinator in Arizona; Anita Berry, another original Healthy Steps Specialist and the Director of Healthy Steps for greater Chicago; Rick Brandt-Kreutz, coordinator of Healthy Steps at UCSF – Fresno Pediatrics Residency Training Program; and Mike Barth, Healthy Steps National Program Director.

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View previous issues of the Healthy Steps E-Update.

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