Plan for the Application Year - NPM #6: (Percent of children, ages 10 through 71 months, receiving a developmental screening using a parent-completed screening tool)
The NJDOH will continue to participate as an active interdepartmental partner with the NJ Council for Young Children (NJCYC), the Preschool Development Grant Birth to Five (PDG B-5) and CDC’s NJ “Learn the Signs. Act Early.” (LTSAE)Team. The NJCYC Infant Child Health Committee has established a priority of improving system connections for children and families with health care providers, community services, early intervention, child care, and home visiting to expand screening (prenatal and child development) in health care and early care and education settings. Through the NJ ECCS Impact CoIIN work, improvements on early childhood systems continued with a focus on creating universal access to evidence-based developmental screening through the early childhood central Intake system (Help Me Grow Central Access Point) that supports linkages and access to programs and services for families within their community. NJ’s LTSAE Ambassador and the LTSAE COVID Response Project activities focus on promoting parent-engaged developmental monitoring and screening, and referral and connection to services through trainings, presentations, and materials distribution across the state. As the State Parent Lead for the ECCS Impact CoIIN and MIEC Home Visiting programs, the LTSAE Ambassador also supports the teams with accessing LTSAE materials and with family-engagement activities. NJ’s Child Developmental Passport, created in collaboration between the LTSAE Ambassador and the ECCS CoIIN team (available in English & Spanish) includes a developmental tracker to empowers parents to track their child’s developmental screening information. In addition, the CDC’s Milestone Tracker App is embedded in the NJ WIC Shopper App to support monitoring of children receiving WIC services. The Boggs Center on Developmental Disabilities, NJ’s federally-designated University Center of Excellence on Developmental Disabilities, and the Statewide Parent Advocacy Network (SPAN), the state’s federally-designated Parent Training and Information Center (PTI) and Family to Family Health Information Center (F2F) and the Boggs Center on Developmental Disabilities, NJ’s federally-designated University Center of Excellence on Developmental Disabilities collaborated on the Act Early State Systems Grant with the shared goal ofLTSAE COVID Response Project with the goals to:
a) Bolster the 4 steps of early identification of developmental delays and disabilities: 1) Parent-engaged Developmental Monitoring 2) General developmental and autism screening 3) Referral for early intervention services 4) Receipt of early intervention services for children birth to 5
b) Advance the promotion and distribution of existing, relevant tools, materials, and programs to improve resiliency among families with young children during COVID-19 response and mitigation efforts.
Additionally, SPAN is collaborating with the NJ Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics on the Early Identification and Referral for Autism (EIRA) ECHO project to provide education to pediatric practices on the early identification, referral and care coordination of children with ASD. SPAN is also collaborating on a project with the NJ site for the Autism & Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network to promote awareness about the importance of parent-engaged developmental monitoring and the early identification of ASD using a validated screening tool in the Newark area,
Grow NJ Kids (GNJK) a Quality Improvement Rating System (QRIS) developed for early learning programs requires the use of a “state approved” developmental screening at Level 2 of a 5 level rating with the expectation that 90% of high needs infants and children participating in GNJK will receive developmental screening by 2019 with an emphasis on using the parent completed child monitoring system Ages and Stages Questionnaires (ASQ and ASQ: SE) screening tools. Implementation of a parent/family portal for easy access to parent-completed early childhood developmental screenings in children < 3 years old (Ages and Stages Questionnaire) through the ECCS Impact grant will permit monitoring of ESM 6.1 (Promote parent-completed early childhood developmental screening) and promote improvement in NPM #6.
The MIEC Home Visiting Program will continue to promote and monitor parent completed child development screening tools (ASQ and ASQ: SE). In SFY 2020 6,303 families with young children participated across all 21 NJ counties. Developmental screening is a required benchmark performance measure and improving developmental screening practices and policies is a current focus on HV evaluation and continuous quality improvement.
Plans for additional expansion of parent completed child development screening (ASQ and ASQ: SE) to all 21 NJ counties occurred in FY20 with the expansion of Early Childhood Specialists staffed within all 21 Central Intake hubs. In FY20, 1108 children were reached through the state wide Central Intake system – ASQ Family Access Portal for access to evidence-based developmental screening.
NJ has completed a significant amount of work to create an aligned system of early education data through the NJ-EASEL (NJ Enterprise Analysis System for Early Learning). The NJ-EASEL project will link DOE’s Statewide Longitudinal Data System (NJ SMART), DCF’s Licensing System, DHS’s Workforce Registry (NJ Registry for Childhood Professionals, a component of the Grow NJ Kids data system), DHS’s child care system (CASS), DCF’s foster care system (NJ SPIRIT), DOH’s Early Intervention System (NJEIS), DCF’s Home Visiting system, Head Start/Early Head Start program data systems, and other state early learning and development data collections within the parameters of state and federal privacy laws. NJ-EASEL project is designed to be able to measure outcome objectives of the initially started through the Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge RTTT-ELC, now sustained through PDG B-5,including being able to show that early developmental screening has a direct impact on identifying children and referring them to needed services resulting in positive outcomes for children. The NJ-EASEL data warehouse will serve as the repository through which collected data informs the quality improvement and outreach activities “managed” by GNJK.
Plan for the Application Year – SPN #3: Improving Nutrition and Physical Activity
NJ SNAP-Ed will continue implementation of behavior-focused nutrition and physical education classes so children can make healthy food and lifestyle choices to prevent obesity. NJ SNAP-Ed and the CAHP’s WSCC School Health NJ project will meet throughout the upcoming year to coordinate and collaborate on improving nutrition and physical activity in New Jersey’s public schools.
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