“Family partnership is defined as patients, families, their representatives, and health professionals working in active partnership at various levels across the health care system—direct care, organizational design and governance, and policy making—to improve health and health care. This partnership is accomplished through the intentional practice of working with families for the ultimate goal of positive outcomes in all areas through the life course.” (Carman et al., 2013).

WY MCH’s core value of engagement, established in 2015 and updated in 2018, demonstrates a commitment to cultivating authentic collaboration and trust with families and community partners to improve outcomes for all MCH populations. 

In 2019, WY MCH convened a group of over 20 engaged stakeholders to discuss opportunities to improve and coordinate statewide parent and family engagement activities. While interest among partners was high, WY MCH lacked dedicated capacity to continue to lead this larger workgroup. Instead, a smaller workgroup was formed including WY MCH, UPLIFT (Wyoming Family Voices), the Wyoming Institute for Disabilities (Wyoming Family to Family Health Information Center [F2FHIC]), the Wyoming Parent Information Center, and a representative from the Wyoming Department of Education. The workgroup continues to meet monthly to share updates on parent/family engagement activities and identify collaboration opportunities. During the COVID-19 pandemic, discussions centered on better understanding families’ challenges and needs during the crisis and sharing about each organization’s efforts to maintain engagement and provide support. This workgroup also agreed to lead implementation of consumer education strategies to promote well visits as part of the Bright Futures Implementation Task Force; however, COVID-19 and diminished leadership capacity has slowed progress on this effort.

Wyoming received the Preschool Development Birth through Five (PDG B-5) and received a renewal grant to continue efforts for the next three years. Grant activities related to parent/family partnership include the development of a family engagement framework, an annual family survey, and administration of “empowering families” sub-grants. The WY MCH CSH Program currently participates on the PDG B-5 Executive Leadership Team, and efforts are underway to better align parent/family engagement efforts led by this grant with Title V family partnership activities. 

WY MCH acknowledges that meaningful parent and family partnership requires dedicated staff and resources. In the absence of a dedicated position in WY MCH to lead this work, WY MCH leverages partnerships (e.g. Wyoming Family Voices, Wyoming F2FHIC) and other workforce capacity building opportunities such as internships and other temporary employee assignments. In fall 2020, WY MCH welcomed a CDC PHAP Associate to increase capacity to improve parent and family partnership activities and to develop a statewide MCH Emergency Preparedness Plan informed by and reviewed by parents and families. Emergency preparedness and response activities are well underway and include participation from WY MCH and partners, including the Wyoming Family Voices affiliate and Wyoming F2FHIC, in the Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs (AMCHP) Emergency Preparedness and Response Action Learning Collaborative (EPR ALC). Efforts to specifically address parent/family/community engagement outside of the context of emergency preparedness and response are on hold until Year 2 as COVID-19 and a CDC deployment have limited the PHAP Associates’s ability to take on more than leading the AMCHP EPR ALC efforts in Year 1. In Year 2, beginning in fall 2021, the Associate will complete an environmental scan on best practices related to parent/family/community engagement, current engagement activities, and work with partners to develop and implement a sustainable parent/family engagement strategy that provides meaningful opportunities for parents and families to participate in program planning and improvement activities within WY MCH and WDH, and across State agencies and organizations.

Fatherhood Engagement

A WY MCH staff member attended a 2019 stakeholder meeting facilitated and led by the Fatherhood Initiative and hosted by the Wyoming Children’s Trust Fund. The goal of the meeting was to bring together interested stakeholders to develop a fatherhood engagement strategic plan. This group of stakeholders drafted a shared mission statement, vision statement, core values, and a fatherhood engagement survey that will be distributed in the coming months. Due to COVID-19, no recent progress has been made on this effort.

Family Voices Partnership

WY MCH continues to work toward strengthening its relationship with Uplift, Wyoming’s Family Voices affiliate. WY MCH supported Uplift’s Executive Director’s attendance at the 2020 and 2021 virtual AMCHP conference. In late 2020, WY MCH and Uplift began planning for a partnership agreement to include Uplift’s provision of technical assistance to WY MCH staff to engage parents and families in MCH program planning, implementation, and evaluation. In addition, Uplift will identify and recruit parent, family, and youth representatives to serve on each WY MCH Priority Action Team (PAT). Uplift also supported efforts to improve the public input process in summer 2020 and 2021 and will continue to do so in subsequent years under the new partnership agreement. Their involvement, paired with leadership from a new Title V Block Grant Coordinator, has led to a significant increase in public input responses, jumping from just two in 2019 to 107 in 2020, sustained at 101 responses in 2021. One success noted in 2021 was that a higher percentage of respondents (60%) were members of the general public, whereas 2020 saw a majority of respondents be public employees with only 35% of respondents being members of the general public; WY MCH believes this may be due to marketing the survey through more directly engaging means, such as the new WY MCH Facebook page and Uplift’s social media pages. Eighteen of Wyoming’s 23 counties were represented in the survey responses. Also in 2021, Uplift piloted a virtual family feedback forum on the CYSHCN domain, in which Uplift staff solicited verbal feedback on the same types of content and questions included in the survey; four parents of CYSHCN participated. Uplift intends to expand the virtual family feedback forum in future years to obtain public input on all MCH domains.

Family-to-Family Health Information Center Partnership

WY MCH established monthly meetings with the Wyoming Institute for Disabilities (Wyoming F2FHIC) in 2020, primarily focusing collaborative efforts on needs assessment coordination. In summer 2020, both organizations jointly released a provider survey on the level and type of care provided to CSHCN in their practices. Survey results revealed a lack of knowledge among providers on WY MCH genetics clinics, Bright Futures guidelines, and Wyoming F2FHIC programs and services. A document describing all programs and resources was developed and sent to all providers who requested more information. WY MCH continues to meet with Wyoming F2FHIC to request additional data from Medicaid on CYSHCN care and needs. Wyoming F2FHIC will also support WY MCH in the completion of an assessment of the National Standards for Systems of Care for CYSHCN.

Children’s Special Health Advisory Council

The 2021-2025 needs assessment identified a priority to improve systems of care for CSHCN. A key strategy of this priority is to develop and convene a CSHCN Advisory Council with the goal of including members with lived experience. This council will support the program in completing an assessment of the National Standards for Systems of Care for CSHCN and implementing an action plan to address opportunities and gaps. A consultant recommended by MCHB began working with the CYSHCN Director in 2020 to begin completion of the assessment, and a second consultant, a national leader in family engagement, will begin to provide support to WY MCH in summer 2021 to establish a framework for a Wyoming CSHCN Advisory Council. Once the initial technical assistance period ends, WY MCH will attempt to sustain support through a contract, assuring that ongoing family engagement consultation can inform all WY MCH family partnership activities.

Wyoming State Youth and Young Adult Council

In early 2020, WY MCH entered into a formal partnership to recruit for and launch a statewide youth council, to inform activities primarily in the Adolescent Domain. The Youth and Young Adult Council (YaYA) has met virtually on a regular basis throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and has provided input and feedback to the YAYAHP and other Wyoming community organizations and state offices on how best to meet the health and wellness needs of the older adolescent population.