Plan for 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), CDC's NJ "Learn the Signs Act Early (LTSAE)." LTSAE Team and the NJ CYC Infant Child Health Committee (ICHC). The ICHC has prioritized improving system connections for children and families with health care providers, community services, early intervention, childcare, home visiting health care, and early care and education settings to support overall child development and well-being. The NJ ECCS Impact CoIIN work informs potential improvements in early childhood systems, focusing on creating universal access to evidence-based developmental screening. The Connecting NJ system (Help Me Grow Central Access Point) supports linkages and access to programs and services for families within their community.

The Early Childhood Comprehensive System (ECCS) Impact grant ended in July 2021. Through the newly awarded ECCS Health Integration Prenatal to Three grant, NJ DCF, in partnership with TVP at NJ DOH, will continue to maintain and improve upon the Connecting NJ System. NJ DCF and TVP at NJ DOH will continue to partner with the NJ's LTSAE Ambassador program, which has activities focusing on promoting parent-engaged developmental monitoring and screening and referral and connection to services through trainings, presentations, and materials distribution across the state. The State Parent Lead for the ECCS and MIEC Home Visiting programs is the LTSAE Ambassador and supports the teams with accessing LTSAE materials and with family- engagement activities.

In FY24, plans to update LTSAE materials with NJ's information on the updated CDC milestone format are being explored. Funding to support these activities is being sought. In the meantime, the general LTSAE tools will continue to be utilized. In addition, the CDC's Milestone Tracker App is embedded in the NJ WIC Shopper App to support the monitoring of children receiving WIC services. The Boggs Center on Developmental Disabilities, NJ's federally designated University Center of Excellence on Developmental Disabilities, 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 of LTSAE COVID Response Project with the goals to:

1. 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
2. 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.

Through the new iteration of ECCS P-3, the intentional focus is being given to the pediatric provider community to promote developmental health and monitoring utilizing the LTSAE tools. The ECCS P-3 Team will continue these plans through the Physician provider outreach and engagement group to work on protocols to strengthen connections with the pediatric provider network to Connecting NJ. The different engagements and protocol development will support the needs of their pediatric patients for services and promote developmental well-being (such as Home Visiting, HWHF, CHWs, Early Education, etc.). The NJ ECCS P-3 team will support the Connecting NJ system in sustaining developmental health promotion and screening activities.

SPAN will continue to collaborate with the NJ Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics on the Early Identification and Referral for Autism (EIRA) ECHO project to educate 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. The Implementation of a parent/family portal for easy access to parent-completed early childhood developmental screenings in children < 3 years old through the ECCS P-3 grant is ongoing. The parent/family portal will permit monitoring of ESM 6.1 (Promote parent-completed early childhood developmental screening) and promote improvement in NPM #6.

NJ has completed significant work to create an aligned early childhood data system through the NJ Enterprise Analysis System for Early Learning (NJ-EASEL). The NJ-EASEL project currently links DOE Statewide Longitudinal Data System (NJ SMART), County/District/State (CDS) reference data, and DHS childcare subsidy data (CARES). NJ-EASEL is in the process of integrating DOH birth record data (EBF/VIP) and data from two DCF Home Visiting systems, Healthy Families (FAMSys) and Parents as Teachers (PATSys).

In future phases, NJ-EASEL plans to integrate DCF childcare licensing information (LIS), DHS Workforce Registry (NJ Registry for Childhood Professionals, a component of the Grow NJ Kids data system), DHS Grow NJ Kids data, DOE staff/workforce data (NJ SMART), DOH Early Intervention System (NJEIS), DOE assessment data (Title 1), DHS cash and food stamp assistance data (FAMIS) and DCF foster care system, and other states early learning and development data collections within the parameters of state and federal privacy laws.

The NJ-EASEL project measures outcome objectives initiated through the Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge RTTT-ELC grant. The NJ-EASEL project shows that early developmental screening directly impacts identifying children and referring them to needed services resulting in positive outcomes for children. The NJ- EASEL integrated data warehouse will serve as the repository through which collected data informs the quality improvement and outreach activities "managed" by GNJK. Overall, NJ-EASEL enables program administrators to provide increased access to high-quality early care and education programs and professionals for NJ's children and families. NJ-EASEL will continue to provide visibility of the collaboration and coordination among Early Childhood Care and Education programs across agencies through the linkages and crossover reports of these programs for participating children.