South Dakota’s MCH engagement strategy is to implement programs that partner with families, engage families as programmatic drivers, employ positive, two-way communication strategies, and make efforts to reflect the culture, values and preferences of families. Family engagement strategies form the basis of partnerships that serve the needs of children, improve quality of care, and support family well-being. This is a process that takes on many different shapes and forms and is always evolving to better include all aspects of true family partnership.
The OCFS and the MCH program are committed to implementing meaningful family engagement at an office-wide level. In 2018 the OCFS enlisted the assistance of a consultant to hold a Family Engagement Strategic Planning meeting with staff in order to identify strengths, weaknesses and opportunities and threats (SWOT) across OCFS programs. In addition to the SWOT activities and planning, a definition for OCFS Family Engagement was also developed - Accomplishing Change Together (ACT) through partnerships, relationship building, family voices, with integrity and respect.
The needs assessment brought to light the need for more engagement with external partners (outside state government), including those impacted by the programs and strategies that each workgroup will develop and implement. To build and continue to develop community-based partners and family leaders, the OCFS has developed a broad strategy for engagement leveraging our 76 community health offices. This strategy will also rely on training for OCFS personnel to develop and sustain partnerships at the local, region and state level. This strategy includes three objectives: 1) develop regional innovation labs for community and family engagement; 2) OCFS leadership will identify and begin to develop partnerships with statewide/national providers, community and family centered groups; and 3) support MCH domain leaders to create workgroups to guide the priorities identified in the needs assessment.
Communication and Outreach
- Assess communication preferences of OCFS clients within the 76 community health offices and with community and state partners.
- Support OCFS regional managers’ time to build community and family engagement collaboratives.
- Continue to develop online communities through the Cor Health (adolescents), For Baby’s Sake (women and infants) web and social media channels and the development of the new MCH website.
- Identify and better understand the needs of English as a second language or non-English speakers in South Dakota.
Develop Community and Family Leaders
- MCH training offered to regional managers and MCH domain leads on Collective Impact as a model for community collaboration.
- Develop a statewide network, relying on family centered, patient or provider organizations to develop family leaders.
- Utilize the TRAIN platform, which allows training to be video recorded and disseminated, to OCFS regional managers, community partners and family leaders.
- Support and learn from the development of the Youth Council, which is a main strategy within the Child/Adolescent domain.
- Learn from the breastfeeding peer counselors’ model – WIC breastfeeding peer counselors provide a valuable service to their communities, addressing the barriers to breastfeeding by offering breastfeeding education, support, and role modeling. The WIC program identifies mothers who were previous breastfeeding WIC participants to fill these paid positions.
Program Development, Improvement and Evaluation
Family input is acknowledged and used to inform program planning and policies through opportunities for regular feedback. This regular feedback will enhance the programmatic continuous quality improvement and program evaluation and evolution to meet community and state needs.
- Development of the CYSHCN and infant safe sleep survey
- PRAMS guides much of our work and is an opportunity to hear from SD mothers.
- Expand the WIC annual survey to include not just WIC services but MCH services as well. These surveys are completed for statewide, regional and clinic information and are incorporated in the clinic nutrition and marketing plans as goals and objectives for overall improvement to the program.
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Public comment
,and direct solicitation of external reviewers of the MCH Block Grant
Training and Professional Development
- MCH domain leaders training and technical assistance request to MCHB workforce development related to meaningful engagement of families and communities.
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Each year there will be opportunities for gathering ideas and strategies for statewide family engagement implementation within the OCFS.
- Renewed focus on orientation and onboarding new employees, cultural competency and health equity
- MCH staff serve on multiple state and national advisory panels, councils, and workgroups that bring together family/consumer partners. This includes but is not limited to the advisory group for the HRSA Hearing Screening grant, early intervention State Interagency Coordinating Council, Developmental Disabilities Council, South Dakota Youth Suicide Prevention Advisory Committee, Oral Health Coalition, Bright Start Home Visiting Community Advisory Boards, Community Based Child Abuse Prevention Board, and the USD Center for the Prevention of Child Maltreatment Advisory Committee. These groups while each having their own focus all include consumers that provide insight and direction to inform decision making at all levels. This assists in ensuring our services are targeted to best meet consumer needs.
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