HMG at EI Conference

Beth Johns and Gail Piggott presented at the 28^th Annual Alabama Early Intervention Conference in Mobile, Alabama on December 4th to a crowd of 50-60 attendees.

The attendees were educated on the Help Me Grow model, its components, current implementation, strategies for engagement for attendees and other partnerships, and materials from Help Me Grow, United Way of Central Alabama, and Alabama Partnership for Children.

The attendees were enthusiastic and asked excellent questions. In the audience were early intervention staff from all over state as well as Head Start/Early Head Start workers, pediatricians, occupational and physical therapists, speech language pathologists, parents/family members, preschool teachers, and personnel from all over the state. There was a lot of enthusiasm from attendees from Chilton County, Children’s of Alabama, Head Start, and Help Me Grow even gained a parent champion for work in Central Alabama.

Early Intervention is Alabama's statewide service that provides support for children 0-36 months of age and their families. To be eligible for services, a child must have a medical diagnosis that delays normal development or have a developmental delay that causes the child to not meet appropriate developmental milestones. Click here to find out more about AL Early Intervention and to refer a child for screening and evaluation.

A Tale of Two Children

Consider the differences between a child given the opportunity to succeed in life, and one who was not given such opportunities. Follow the link to read this powerful, short post shared by our partners at American Academy of Pediatrics and Reach Out and Read.

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A Tale of Two Children by Dr. Olson Huff

It was, according to the opening words of Charles Dickens’ famous novel, A Tale of Two Cities, “the best of times the worst of times.”

Although far removed from the French Revolution, the contrasting scenes those words evoke are very much reflected in the lives of America’s children today. Consider the increasing numbers of those in poverty who live on the fringe of hope and for whom the worst of times simply last and last and last.  If current research on the developing brain is accurate, and mounting evidence says it is, then the child who sits in that fringe will be hard pressed to move beyond it. For what we are now learning is that the stress to the delicate  brain of a very young child, struggling to survive in a hostile environment punctuated with violence, rejection, hunger, illness, homelessness and fear is too much to permit its normal development. The chemical dance that inhabits and protects us becomes a frenetic force that destroys rather than nurtures and, as a result, the brain forever loses vital connections that have been designed to plan, think, behave, learn and rejoice.

Consider then, the tale of two children...

Alabama Partnership for Children

The Alabama Partnership for Children (APC) is a nonprofit organization located in Montgomery that works statewide to help build and maintain systems that serve children birth to age five and their families. The agency is the co-lead for Help Me Grow Alabama and is committed to developing Help Me Grow as an effective statewide service.

Along with Help Me Grow, the APC has other programs that connect new parents to resources, serve child care providers in education and professional development, and advocate for investment in early childhood systems overall. Each program of the APC is designed to give young children a Smart Start in life. APC does everything in partnership with other public, private, state and local organizations. It believes that interaction with and input from others is the only way to effectively improve communities and make long-term impact on people's lives.

Through Help Me Grow, the Alabama Partnership for Children is dedicated to protecting children by encouraging parents, providing information and awareness about appropriate child development, supporting efforts to identify developmental delays, and connecting children and families to the services they need. Call 1-866-711-4025 or visit www.SmartStartAlabama.org to learn more.

Let's Play!

A few weeks ago, HMG staff hosted a Books, Balls, and Blocks event in Walker County. Help Me Grow: Books, Balls, and Blocks (BBB) is a free event held for children and their families. The purpose of the event is to screen children for developmental delays in the first five years of life.

The event is fun, educational, and exciting! While children engage in games and activities at different stations, parents learn how these interactions help stimulate their child’s development. 

This child LOVED sensory play in the pool of packing peanuts.

While the children are playing, parents complete the Ages and Stages Questionnaire (ASQ-3). The ASQ-3 is reliable, valid, cost-effective, and easy to use. The ASQ-3 is the recommended tool to screen children for developmental delays. There are professionals on-site who score the completed ASQ-3's. Afterwards, parents receive a follow-up from a professional to learn if his or her child’s development 1) appears on schedule, 2) needs to be monitored and provided learning activities, or 3) requires further assessment with a professional.

Parents are given resources concerning their child’s development and fun activities that they can do with their child! Free community resources are also available at the event!

Our hope is for “Help Me Grow: Book, Balls, and Blocks” to be a free, fun, and exciting event, while supporting healthy development among children in your community.

What's Up, Doc?

We mentioned before that HMG Central AL participated in a joint training for pediatricians interested in developmental screening with Alabama Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AL-AAP) and Reach Out and Read in Birmingham back in September. The training covered information about the need for more pediatricians to do developmental screening, how to incorporate developmental screening into a busy practice, how to use Help Me Grow to support children with challenges on their screenings or who need to be tracked for changes in their development.  There were seven practices trained which represented four out of five counties in the HMG CA footprint- Jefferson, Shelby, Blount, Walker and St. Clair. This was a great opportunity to expose local child health care providers to HMG, developmental screening and the process for AL-AAP's Quality Improvement project. The training allowed for all of us to get to know one another, and explain how it fits with Reach Out and Read. The training received excellent feedback. Training and outreach to child health care providers is an important focus of HMG CA and we will be focusing our efforts to train office staff and more practices.  We have already delivered Ages and Stages Questionnaire and begun to ask about who else would be a leader practice in developmental screening. 

Anyone in Jefferson, Blount, Shelby, St. Clair, or Walker counties can simply dial 2-1-1 and get connected to HMG. It's important that health care providers know what HMG is and how it works so they can connect children and families to the services they need with one simple phone call. 

ROR + HMG

Check out this newsletter that features Help Me Grow Alabama.  Reach Out and Read-Alabama, a program of the Alabama Chapter AAP is a key partner in our success in Central Alabama.

Reach Out and Read (ROR) is a national nonprofit organization that works with pediatricians and, like HMG, is expanding in pediatric practices and clinics. 

“Reach Out and Read started as a simple solution to an obvious problem: waiting rooms without books. Reading aloud was important for young children, and pediatricians had a special opportunity to reach their parents. It was a patently good idea. But if it had been nothing more than that, it would have withered away. Instead, ROR has grown, nurtured by the passionate and inspired efforts of many-educators, doctors, volunteers, parents, corporations, foundations and politicians.” -Robert Needlman, MD, ROR Co-founder

HMG-Central Alabama has connected with Reach Out and Read-Alabama to access pediatricians with a united message about early childhood development. Our streamlined partnership simplifies what we're both asking of health care providers- to prepare America’s youngest children to succeed in school; prescribing books and encouraging families to read together AND referring those families with children in need of developmental services to HMG.

Have you ever noticed Reach Out and Read materials in your waiting room?

Welcome!

Welcome to the Help Me Grow Alabama blog. Help Me Grow (HMG) is a national model that is being replicated in Alabama. HMG is founded on four basic components: young children need regular developmental assessment to identify and treat developmental concerns; families, doctors, and community service providers all need to be a part of the treatment process; everyone should be able to call one simple phone number to help connect them to the resources they need; tracking data is important for measuring impact and identifying areas of need. We are just beginning to implement our program in the Central Alabama five county area of Blount, Shelby, Jefferson, St. Clair, and Walker counties. On Friday, September 14th, Help Me Grow Central Alabama and the Alabama Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics will conduct their first pediatric training. Check back here to learn more about Help Me Grow, the services we offer, and topics that relate.