Early Childhood Conference Call Series
March 1, 2007

Participating:

Ginny Stack and Frank Pace, Rhode Island; Jared Ivy, Oregon; Fran Goldfarb, Marie Paulsen, Duncan Faucet, Karen Finello, Maureen McKee, and David Zippen, Los Angeles ABC Project; Tal Curry and Beth Armstrong, Kentucky; Michelle Herman, CMHS; Heidi Maderia, Elaine Fitzgerald, Margaret Holmberg, Amy Griffin and Duncan, Building Blocks, Southeastern Connecticut; Liz Doyle, McHenry County, Illinois; Ray and Frank, Allegheny; Sheryl Schrepf, Maria Garcia-Casellas, Katherine Shea, Doreen Benson, Ilene Berson, Lisa, Sheri Crelin, Sarasota, FL; Kurt Moore, National Evaluation; Sarah Hoover, Colorado; Roxanne Kaufman, Georgetown, NTAC; Becky Ornelas and Ken Martinez, Technical Assistance Partnership

SE Connecticutt:

Successes

• Diversity of enthusiastic and passionate stakeholders involved from the planning, development through implementation stage including the involvement of families and youth. These families have been involved with Building Blocks from the beginning and throughout, so the network is already more or less in place and the community is already familiar with the program.
• Tremendously hardworking and dedicated staff working through this ambiguous process together as a team. The youth coordinator has been extremely involved and helpful. Strong family organizations that have been strong core partners from the beginning.
• Excitement and buy-in from the community for the need of a program like Building Blocks
• Have an online training calendar – so they don’t duplicate trainings that are already going on in the community they have compiled a calendar of all of the trainings going on in the area so families and communities have access to what is available. Also includes link to partnering agencies. They include a note on the website that they don’t endorse these trainings, but it is a resource for people to see what is available.

Challenges

• Connecting with diverse populations (tribal communities, migrant populations working in local casinos, Latino and African American communities).
• Provide training and support to staff while simultaneously serving the community.
  

Project ABC, Los Angeles, California

Strengths

• Have broad and high level representation on governance board and as a part of planning. Partners are involved and enthusiastic about Project ABC and its potential for all of Los Angeles. Have people who can both identify issues as well as do something about them.
• Family Support –have strong family staff who are well connected with the local and statewide developmental disability, mental health and disability family support networks.
• Strong evaluation team that understands both the requirements of the project and early childhood needs.
• Have a strong training program that includes both monthly training activities as well as large training opportunities. This has been aided by the state providing training model. This is available on the TA Partnership website under early childhood resources.

Challenges

• Los Angeles is big, complex and fragmented with a populated that is culturally and linguistically diverse. Project ABC has identified a service planning area highly populated and with services that don't necessarily talk to each other. Families have to enter through too many separate doors into rooms that don't seem to connect.
• Early childhood mental health represents a gap in family support systems. Many of the children will not have a diagnosis that would guide them into existing systems. The state family organization does not have ready resources for early childhood needs.
• Evaluation process is burdensome to families and we don’t have sufficient funding to pay each family for their participation. They need strategies to help the families feel like they will benefit from participating in the evaluation and that it isn’t just for their benefit. They are looking for strategies that will help families realize that they can benefit from these evaluations.

Discussion

• Strategies for finding other avenues to connect with families who haven’t connected with formal systems yet
• Create a parent network though Early Start and HeadStart
• Vermont used a parent to parent approach where one parent connects with another to build their network
• In Connecticut the Family involvement Coordinator connected with existing networks in the area and did outreach events at libraries, faith based locations, etc. to reach out to families when they are out and about
• Invite parents to form a Family Council
• Develop brief brochures with lists of physicians and other resources to call.
• Strategies on how to encourage families to be a part of the evaluation process and understand how this will benefit them.
• Treat parents and families with respect, invite them to be part of process, and compensate them for their time. How families will perceive you has much to do with presentation and how you approach parents and involve them. Parents with young children may have less energy, which presents unique challenges.
• San Francisco hired families from different ethnic communities from within the larger San Francisco community that were known and trusted by the families. These families then went out and made the connections with families. This worked well because they were already known and respected in their communities and already knew many people in the community.
• Engage service providers so that they are hearing about the evaluation process from the beginning. Families that are engaged in family involvement are more likely to stay involved. Oregon uses a brochure with family involvement options and interviewers provide that information as well.
• Engage parents and be flexible. You may need to split into two sessions to better suit the time restraints of the parents, or provide childcare.
• Training efforts
• SE Connecticut has been working on intensive training with a priority on internal staff training. After training internal staff, looking at how that would apply to families, youth, etc. They are experimenting with various elements such as time of day, length of training, length of sessions.
• Los Angeles-Working with other organizations and groups in the community is helpful – you can each promote each others’ trainings
• Sarasota – infant/toddler specialists are providing training for service providers in the area, including training on how to identify signs of mental health issues in young children.
• SE Connecticut is working with local colleges to make sure that mental health awareness is present and strengthened in courses and programs so students who go into the field have a mental health background. They are talking with people in higher education to make sure that people are aware of mental health issues.
• Outreach to diverse communities: How to meet the needs of diverse populations
• Colorado has been working with a consultant to help make trainings more culturally relevant. Try to offer as many Spanish opportunities as possible. Best outreach strategy has been using existing organizations as partners to get information out about mental health issues.
• Offer as many materials as possible in languages spoken in the community. If possible, hire facilitators, interviewers, and coordinators who speak these languages.
• Cultural brokering
  • A Cultural Broker is someone who comes from a group of people of a differing cultural background within the larger community. They serve as ambassadors to the community from which they come and therefore are respected. The cultural broker acts as a go-between between the group and the system of care. Their familiarity with the community will allow them to make an effective first contact and present mental health issues with less stigma.
  • You could have many different cultural brokers although you may not be able to reach to every neighborhood within a community, for example LA where there are so many cultural groups.
  • Cultural brokers can from many parts of the community and don’t have to come from a mental health organization.
  • To learn more, go to http://www11.georgetown.edu/research/gucchd/nccc/resources/brokering.html (also available in Spanish)
• Promotoras-Community leaders at neighborhood level are recruited to be resource link, information link with their neighbors. Sometimes paid, sometimes voluntary, sometimes temporary. Builds individual capacity, but also fosters neighborhood networking and capacity for neighborhood resources. Been a successful approach for approaching the Latino community.
• Resource for communities with Native American populations -- contact Dolores Jimerson at NICWA. Her email is: Dolores@nicwa.org She may be able to help with outreach strategies.
• There is going to be a cultural and linguistic competence primer (coming out in year or so) and there will be a chapter on outreach with several examples of successful approaches
• Front door approach – provide a wide range of services or referrals for other services such as housing, legal aid, WIC programs, etc. Even if the SOC can’t afford to do all of these things, they may be available through partnering organizations. This helps families that were overwhelmed with other issues be more open to, ready and trusting of mental health services

Next call will be on May 3 rd 2:30-4:00 pm.877-326-2337, Conference ID number is: 4294308#. Maine will present on its SOC community

Next National Meeting in New Orleans on August 1-3. Focusing on trauma-informed services and supports, resiliency and healing. The Technical Assistance Partnership will be calling for presentations.

In planning for the New Orleans meeting think about whether you are interested in a pre-conference early childhood day on July 31 st. This would not be a day for formal presentations, but for networking and working on specific issues. Please email Ken Martinez, if you are interested, kmartinez@air.org or post it on the listserv.