III.E.2.c. State Action Plan - CSHCN - Application Year - Minnesota - 2024
Search Term:
Domain: Children with Special Health Care Needs
Planning for October 2023-September 2024
Objective
By 2025, increase the percentage of CYSHN who are adequately insured by 10%.
National Performance Measure
(NPM #15) Percent of children, ages 0 through 17, who are continuously and adequately insured.
Access to adequate health insurance has a great impact on the ability of CYSHN and their families to receive needed services and supports.
The goal for FY2024 is to have 64.9% of CYSHN (ages 0-17) be adequately insured.
Evidence-Informed Strategy Measure
(ESM 15.2) Percent of care coordinators reporting increased knowledge in serving CYSHN and their families after participating in Community of Practice webinars.
As care coordinators connect, share, and learn from each other, they can improve positive health outcomes by building the capacity of all systems that serve families of CYSHN. Care coordinators are key players in helping families navigate systems and access needed care – a vital component of this is ensuring families have adequate insurance and financing to access services and supports. Because of this, Minnesota is using our Pediatric Care Coordination Community of Practice as our strategy of focus for our ESM. More specifically, we are measuring the percentage of care coordinators who report increased knowledge in serving CYSHN and their families after participating in Community of Practice events.
The goal for FY2024 is to have 77.5% of care coordinators report increased knowledge in serving CYSHN and their families after participating in Community of Practice webinars.
Community-Identified Priority Need: Access to Services and Supports for Children and Youth with Special Health Needs
For more information on the importance of Access to Services and Supports for Children and Youth with Special Health Needs on the lives of people living in Minnesota see the CYSHN 2022 Annual Report.
Strategies and Activities
A. Strategy A: Enhance Centralized Resources to Improve Knowledge of Services and Supports
1. State Level Activities
1.1 Coordinate Online Resource Directories with Interagency Partners
MDH will work with interagency partners to coordinate efforts around online centralized resource directories so that they better serve families of CYSHN – especially those with older children. Three directories of focus include the:
- Minnesota Disability Hub (https://disabilityhubmn.org/): CYSHN staff will continue to work with Disability Hub staff to ensure the resource has information appropriate for parents/caregivers of CYSHN.
- Help Me Connect (https://helpmeconnect.web.health.state.mn.us/HelpMeConnect/): CYSHN staff will work closely with Help Me Connect staff to make sure the navigator meets the needs of these users and families of CYSHN – which includes ensuring resources typically used by families of children with disabilities and medical and mental health needs are included on the navigator.
- Minnesota Autism Portal (https://mn.gov/autism/): CYSHN staff will continue to participate on the interagency workgroup related to autism spectrum disorders and will provide input on the autism portal.
B. Strategy B: Build the Capacity of Communities by Cultivating Knowledge and Improving Collaboration
1. State Level Activities
1.1 Facilitate the Pediatric Care Coordination Community of Practice
This is a continued activity from Minnesota’s previous five-year state action plan, and aims to increase knowledge, skills, and connections of care coordinators to improve access to effective culturally relevant care coordination for CYSHN and their families. The Community of Practice is open to anyone who provides care coordination to children and youth in Minnesota who would like to learn with and from one another.
During FFY 2024, MDH will continue to work with ACET, Inc., a woman- and minority-owned small business enterprise based in Minneapolis to facilitate the Community of Practice. Under the guidance of an advisory workgroup, comprised of leaders in care coordination from across the state, ACET and MDH will work together to:
- Conduct an ongoing needs assessment to identify strengths, needs, issues, and challenges in providing care coordination. Use findings to inform topics for trainings and meetings.
- Develop promotional and marketing materials.
- Recruit coordinators from within communities and across sectors, organizations, and geographic regions of the state.
- Compile tools, resources, and trainings on innovative or best practices in providing culturally relevant care coordination.
- Promote the Networking and Resource Center that includes a directory of participants; forums for sharing resources trainings, and tools; and discussion forums or opportunities for participants to communicate, network, and problem solve with one another.
- Convene regional in-person meetings to encourage peer-to-peer sharing, networking, and collaboration.
- Grow the Advisory Board to ensure it aligns with our membership.
- Conduct an evaluation that includes process and outcome measures.
1.2 Provide Training and Technical Assistance to Local Public Health Staff on Supporting CYSHN
Title V staff plan to work with Local Public Health (LPH) to increase assessments and follow-up provided to children with (and at-risk for) special health needs. Because of their broad understanding of the local system of care and available supports for families, nurses, and other professionals, LPH agencies serve as a centralized resource in Minnesota’s public health system. During FFY 2024, Minnesota will focus on follow-up provided via Minnesota’s Birth Defects and Newborn Screening Longitudinal Surveillance and Follow-Up Programs. These programs contract with LPH agencies to conduct follow-up with families of children with a birth defect or a condition identified through newborn screening (hearing loss, critical congenital heart disease, and heritable/blood spot conditions). In January 2023, Minnesota began universally screening for Congenital Cytomegalovirus (cCMV) as a part of the Newborn Screening program. Follow-up from LPH will also be provided to families of infants identified with cCMV. Public health nurses contact families to conduct an assessment, help navigate the system, provide education about various supports and services, and refer families to important resources such as the state’s Family-to-Family Health Information Center. LPH nurses use a database to track concerns families identify through their assessment and the follow up education and counseling provided.
In future years, Minnesota plans to work to expand this follow-up model more broadly with other CYSHN, including those who are at-risk for special health needs from developmental delays, and neonatal abstinence syndrome, for instance.
1.3 Participate on the Minnesota Rare Disease Advisory Council to Advocate for Systematic Changes to Address the Needs of the Rare Disease and Medically Complex Community
Minnesota’s Title V CYSHN Director will continue to represent the Commissioner of Health on the Rare Disease Advisory Council and participate in the Council’s Coordination of Care/Transition of Care Workgroup. The Council’s purpose is to provide advice on research, diagnosis, treatment, and education related to rare diseases. Its membership includes health care providers, administrators, caregivers or people with rare disease, health plan representatives, researchers, and members of the Minnesota legislature. Members are appointed by the Governor. In partnership with the Minnesota Medical Association, the council hosted a Project ECHO series and a Transition Summit to develop a sustainable and collaborative knowledge-sharing community focused on improving the transition from pediatric to adult care for youth with medical complexity. From these initiatives, the Council has developed and prioritized a list of potential solutions including policy recommendations that the council hopes to bring forward in FFY2024.
1.4 Advocate for Systematic Changes to Address the Needs of CYSHN throughout Childhood and Into Adulthood
MDH staff will continue to partner on efforts around improving interagency coordination among state agencies related to school-age and transition to adulthood initiatives. This includes collaboration with DHS, MDE, and DEED. The Person-Centered Planning and Coordination Pilot Project has developed a menu of person-centered and interagency practices and tools that can be customized according to a local community cohort depending on their priorities and needs to build capacity at the system and individual team levels, and to enhance student and family engagement in services and supports. The focus in FFY 2023 and 2024 will be on increasing implementation of interagency and person-centered practices to communities serving students who have behavioral health concerns or complex disabilities and their families. The state interagency team will provide consultation, coaching and connections within communities.
MDH CYSHN is also represented and participating in the transition work being done by the Employment Capacity Building Cohort (ECBC) with MDE and DEED. A special interest group of school health nurses involved in special education and transition was convened to explore best practices and discuss how health can be integrated into special education. They are specifically looking at the Minnesota Transition Framework and Toolkit that is in the process of development by the ECBC state interagency leads and aim to have completed sometime in FFY 2024.
As follow-up to the Transitions Roundtable (described in the 2022 CYSHN Report), 25 possible solutions/strategies were identified and ranked on feasibility, urgency, and priority for implementation. A summary document is being developed to be shared among attendees and key state stakeholders in FFY 2024. Additionally, an RFP was posted to support the implementation of a Health Care Transition Learning Collaborative with implementation to begin Summer 2023 and continue into FFY 2024. This grant will provide funding to Gillette Children’s Specialty Healthcare to facilitate a statewide Learning Collaborative with the purpose of improving the competence and confidence of health care providers in managing the care of youth and young adults with special health needs and disabilities through the health care transition process in a culturally responsive, trauma-informed manner. The Learning Collaborative will bring together subject matter experts, health care providers, YSHND and their families, and other systems partners to reduce silos and build infrastructure for a model of care delivery that ensures YSHND are able to successfully integrate into adult systems of care.
1.5 Collect and Analyzing Data to Better Understand Disparities Amongst Families of CYSHN
While national data on CYSHN can help identify inequities and gaps in access to services and supports for certain subgroups of CYSHN, it is difficult to report on important differences due to data limitations at the state level. The National Survey of Children’s Health is a primary data source for CYSHN; however, Minnesota is unable to conduct sub-analyses at the state level due to small sample sizes. Combining years of data can help to increase sample size, however, there are limitations to this approach as many families have faced significant life changes due to COVID-19 pandemic (i.e., the quality of life and well-being of families has significantly been impacted by the pandemic, and things they would have reported before are likely very different now).
However, Minnesota has contracted with the Census Bureau to increase the sample size of children in the state whose parents/caregivers complete the National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH). Our hope with this oversampling is that we will better be able to conduct subgroup analyses on measures impacting CYSHN (i.e., being able to analyze data on CYSHN by race/ethnicity) in FFY 2024 and beyond. Additionally, Minnesota plans to conduct analyses on the health and well-being of CYSHN using the five-year estimates of the NSCH (2016 – 2020) that were recently posted in the Data Resource Center. We will compile and publish a report on these findings and will share this across MDH, other state agencies, and community-based organizations. In this report, we will work to visualize the data in ways that are friendly to the public whenever possible using dashboards of summary and de-identified data available for viewing.
Though data limitations exist, we do know that there are strong connections between racism and ableism that lead to barriers to care and poorer outcomes. It is important to understand how racism and ableism are linked and the impact on Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) with disabilities/special health needs and their families in Minnesota.
1.6 Build Partnership and Capacity through MDH’s Disability Health Equity Collaborative
MDH’s Center for Health Equity, the Health Promotion and Chronic Disease Division and the CYSHN Section have partnered to build a Disability Health Equity Collaborative across the entire agency. A charter has been created and several working groups have been launched, including the Disability Data Affinity Group. The Disability data affinity group has developed draft data standards, and for the rest of FFY 2023 and into FFY2024 will be developing a plan of action for a disability dashboard.
Quarterly meetings of the Disability Health Equity Collaborative will continue through FFY2024 and beyond. During these quarterly meeting, updates and information around activities related to disabilities across the department will be shared and there will be a shared learning opportunity on a topic related to disability.
As the work of the Disability Health Equity Collaborative moves forward, additional staff dedicated to the work are gradually being identified and invited to participate. A proposal for additional funding for this work was put forward during the 2023 legislative session, however the proposal ultimately did not pass.
C. Strategy C: Construct a Competent and Well-Compensated Workforce
1. State Level Activities
1.1 Increase, Develop, and Retain the Home Care Workforce
In FFY 2024, Minnesota plans to focus work on increasing, developing, and retaining the home care work force. We are defining the home care workforce as those direct support professionals who provide care to persons with disabilities and special health needs in the home. This can include, but is not limited to, personal care assistances, home health nurses, and support staff.
As a state, Minnesota has done a lot of work around workforce shortage issues – and yet significant gaps remain, contributing to a public health crisis impacting persons with disabilities and special health needs and their families. As a first step, we plan to analyze the landscape around the issues facing the home care workforce and learn more about “who” is doing “what” in combating these issues. This will include participating on various committees, groups, and discussions that have been assembled by various state agencies and advocacy organizations. Through this participation, MDH staff will work to figure out where gaps exist and determine where we can take a role in solving issues. Our goal is to develop a plan of actionable steps that we can take as a public health department to help build from or enhance the work being done to better increase, develop, and retain our home care workforce.
1.2 Support Family Organizations to Engage in Policy and Systems Change Efforts
Minnesota has developed a timeline and plan to engage family support organizations by conducting an environmental scan, including launching a survey with the help of a Think Tank group who is providing insight and guidance through every phase of the project. The Think Tank is a small group of representatives from diverse “special health needs” organizations. The survey and scan efforts will involve a snowball approach. The survey will close April 2023 and in person or phone interviews, targeting a diverse audience will take place in May/June 2023From the environmental scan, we hope to learn who is supporting families of CYSHN and disabilities, how we can better communicate with family support organizations, and what the needs and challenges these organizations are facing. A technical assistance and engagement plan to family support will be developed based on what we learn from the environmental scan and with input from the Think Tank. From this plan, an engagement strategy and TA sessions will be launched in FFY2024.
D. Additional Related Activities
1. State Level Activities
1.1 Promote the Charting the LifeCourse Framework Across the State
Minnesota has partnered with the National Community of Practice (CoP) for Supporting Families on implementing facets of the Charting the LifeCourse (CtLC) framework into our work with people with disabilities and their families, caregivers, and support persons (formal and informal). Staff from the CYSHN Program will continue participating on a leadership team comprised of representatives from the Minnesota Departments of Human Services, Education, and Employment and Economic Development to help lead this Community of Practice. This team has created a network of Minnesota stakeholders engaged in supporting families across the lifespan using the CtLC framework. The network, MN-Connect, will provide a platform for this growing community of innovators and early adopters to network with and support one another for continued learning and ongoing application. Technical assistance will be provided by assigned staff from the National CoP for Supporting Families as this initiative continues to develop.
Domain: Children with Special Health Care Needs
Planning for October 2023-September 2024
Objective
By 2025, increase the percentage of CYSHN who are adequately insured by 10%.
National Performance Measure
(NPM #15) Percent of children, ages 0 through 17, who are continuously and adequately insured.
Access to adequate health insurance has a great impact on the ability of CYSHN and their families to receive needed services and supports.
The goal for FY2024 is to have 64.9% of CYSHN (ages 0-17) be adequately insured.
Evidence-Informed Strategy Measure
(ESM 15.2) Percent of care coordinators reporting increased knowledge in serving CYSHN and their families after participating in Community of Practice webinars.
As care coordinators connect, share, and learn from each other, they can improve positive health outcomes by building the capacity of all systems that serve families of CYSHN. Care coordinators are key players in helping families navigate systems and access needed care – a vital component of this is ensuring families have adequate insurance and financing to access services and supports. Because of this, Minnesota is using our Pediatric Care Coordination Community of Practice as our strategy of focus for our ESM. More specifically, we are measuring the percentage of care coordinators who report increased knowledge in serving CYSHN and their families after participating in Community of Practice events.
The goal for FY2024 is to have 77.5% of care coordinators report increased knowledge in serving CYSHN and their families after participating in Community of Practice webinars.
Community-Identified Priority Need: Access to Services and Supports for Children and Youth with Special Health Needs
For more information on the importance of Access to Services and Supports for Children and Youth with Special Health Needs on the lives of people living in Minnesota see the CYSHN 2022 Annual Report.
Strategies and Activities
A. Strategy A: Enhance Centralized Resources to Improve Knowledge of Services and Supports
1. State Level Activities
1.1 Coordinate Online Resource Directories with Interagency Partners
MDH will work with interagency partners to coordinate efforts around online centralized resource directories so that they better serve families of CYSHN – especially those with older children. Three directories of focus include the:
- Minnesota Disability Hub (https://disabilityhubmn.org/): CYSHN staff will continue to work with Disability Hub staff to ensure the resource has information appropriate for parents/caregivers of CYSHN.
- Help Me Connect (https://helpmeconnect.web.health.state.mn.us/HelpMeConnect/): CYSHN staff will work closely with Help Me Connect staff to make sure the navigator meets the needs of these users and families of CYSHN – which includes ensuring resources typically used by families of children with disabilities and medical and mental health needs are included on the navigator.
- Minnesota Autism Portal (https://mn.gov/autism/): CYSHN staff will continue to participate on the interagency workgroup related to autism spectrum disorders and will provide input on the autism portal.
B. Strategy B: Build the Capacity of Communities by Cultivating Knowledge and Improving Collaboration
1. State Level Activities
1.1 Facilitate the Pediatric Care Coordination Community of Practice
This is a continued activity from Minnesota’s previous five-year state action plan, and aims to increase knowledge, skills, and connections of care coordinators to improve access to effective culturally relevant care coordination for CYSHN and their families. The Community of Practice is open to anyone who provides care coordination to children and youth in Minnesota who would like to learn with and from one another.
During FFY 2024, MDH will continue to work with ACET, Inc., a woman- and minority-owned small business enterprise based in Minneapolis to facilitate the Community of Practice. Under the guidance of an advisory workgroup, comprised of leaders in care coordination from across the state, ACET and MDH will work together to:
- Conduct an ongoing needs assessment to identify strengths, needs, issues, and challenges in providing care coordination. Use findings to inform topics for trainings and meetings.
- Develop promotional and marketing materials.
- Recruit coordinators from within communities and across sectors, organizations, and geographic regions of the state.
- Compile tools, resources, and trainings on innovative or best practices in providing culturally relevant care coordination.
- Promote the Networking and Resource Center that includes a directory of participants; forums for sharing resources trainings, and tools; and discussion forums or opportunities for participants to communicate, network, and problem solve with one another.
- Convene regional in-person meetings to encourage peer-to-peer sharing, networking, and collaboration.
- Grow the Advisory Board to ensure it aligns with our membership.
- Conduct an evaluation that includes process and outcome measures.
1.2 Provide Training and Technical Assistance to Local Public Health Staff on Supporting CYSHN
Title V staff plan to work with Local Public Health (LPH) to increase assessments and follow-up provided to children with (and at-risk for) special health needs. Because of their broad understanding of the local system of care and available supports for families, nurses, and other professionals, LPH agencies serve as a centralized resource in Minnesota’s public health system. During FFY 2024, Minnesota will focus on follow-up provided via Minnesota’s Birth Defects and Newborn Screening Longitudinal Surveillance and Follow-Up Programs. These programs contract with LPH agencies to conduct follow-up with families of children with a birth defect or a condition identified through newborn screening (hearing loss, critical congenital heart disease, and heritable/blood spot conditions). In January 2023, Minnesota began universally screening for Congenital Cytomegalovirus (cCMV) as a part of the Newborn Screening program. Follow-up from LPH will also be provided to families of infants identified with cCMV. Public health nurses contact families to conduct an assessment, help navigate the system, provide education about various supports and services, and refer families to important resources such as the state’s Family-to-Family Health Information Center. LPH nurses use a database to track concerns families identify through their assessment and the follow up education and counseling provided.
In future years, Minnesota plans to work to expand this follow-up model more broadly with other CYSHN, including those who are at-risk for special health needs from developmental delays, and neonatal abstinence syndrome, for instance.
1.3 Participate on the Minnesota Rare Disease Advisory Council to Advocate for Systematic Changes to Address the Needs of the Rare Disease and Medically Complex Community
Minnesota’s Title V CYSHN Director will continue to represent the Commissioner of Health on the Rare Disease Advisory Council and participate in the Council’s Coordination of Care/Transition of Care Workgroup. The Council’s purpose is to provide advice on research, diagnosis, treatment, and education related to rare diseases. Its membership includes health care providers, administrators, caregivers or people with rare disease, health plan representatives, researchers, and members of the Minnesota legislature. Members are appointed by the Governor. In partnership with the Minnesota Medical Association, the council hosted a Project ECHO series and a Transition Summit to develop a sustainable and collaborative knowledge-sharing community focused on improving the transition from pediatric to adult care for youth with medical complexity. From these initiatives, the Council has developed and prioritized a list of potential solutions including policy recommendations that the council hopes to bring forward in FFY2024.
1.4 Advocate for Systematic Changes to Address the Needs of CYSHN throughout Childhood and Into Adulthood
MDH staff will continue to partner on efforts around improving interagency coordination among state agencies related to school-age and transition to adulthood initiatives. This includes collaboration with DHS, MDE, and DEED. The Person-Centered Planning and Coordination Pilot Project has developed a menu of person-centered and interagency practices and tools that can be customized according to a local community cohort depending on their priorities and needs to build capacity at the system and individual team levels, and to enhance student and family engagement in services and supports. The focus in FFY 2023 and 2024 will be on increasing implementation of interagency and person-centered practices to communities serving students who have behavioral health concerns or complex disabilities and their families. The state interagency team will provide consultation, coaching and connections within communities.
MDH CYSHN is also represented and participating in the transition work being done by the Employment Capacity Building Cohort (ECBC) with MDE and DEED. A special interest group of school health nurses involved in special education and transition was convened to explore best practices and discuss how health can be integrated into special education. They are specifically looking at the Minnesota Transition Framework and Toolkit that is in the process of development by the ECBC state interagency leads and aim to have completed sometime in FFY 2024.
As follow-up to the Transitions Roundtable (described in the 2022 CYSHN Report), 25 possible solutions/strategies were identified and ranked on feasibility, urgency, and priority for implementation. A summary document is being developed to be shared among attendees and key state stakeholders in FFY 2024. Additionally, an RFP was posted to support the implementation of a Health Care Transition Learning Collaborative with implementation to begin Summer 2023 and continue into FFY 2024. This grant will provide funding to Gillette Children’s Specialty Healthcare to facilitate a statewide Learning Collaborative with the purpose of improving the competence and confidence of health care providers in managing the care of youth and young adults with special health needs and disabilities through the health care transition process in a culturally responsive, trauma-informed manner. The Learning Collaborative will bring together subject matter experts, health care providers, YSHND and their families, and other systems partners to reduce silos and build infrastructure for a model of care delivery that ensures YSHND are able to successfully integrate into adult systems of care.
1.5 Collect and Analyzing Data to Better Understand Disparities Amongst Families of CYSHN
While national data on CYSHN can help identify inequities and gaps in access to services and supports for certain subgroups of CYSHN, it is difficult to report on important differences due to data limitations at the state level. The National Survey of Children’s Health is a primary data source for CYSHN; however, Minnesota is unable to conduct sub-analyses at the state level due to small sample sizes. Combining years of data can help to increase sample size, however, there are limitations to this approach as many families have faced significant life changes due to COVID-19 pandemic (i.e., the quality of life and well-being of families has significantly been impacted by the pandemic, and things they would have reported before are likely very different now).
However, Minnesota has contracted with the Census Bureau to increase the sample size of children in the state whose parents/caregivers complete the National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH). Our hope with this oversampling is that we will better be able to conduct subgroup analyses on measures impacting CYSHN (i.e., being able to analyze data on CYSHN by race/ethnicity) in FFY 2024 and beyond. Additionally, Minnesota plans to conduct analyses on the health and well-being of CYSHN using the five-year estimates of the NSCH (2016 – 2020) that were recently posted in the Data Resource Center. We will compile and publish a report on these findings and will share this across MDH, other state agencies, and community-based organizations. In this report, we will work to visualize the data in ways that are friendly to the public whenever possible using dashboards of summary and de-identified data available for viewing.
Though data limitations exist, we do know that there are strong connections between racism and ableism that lead to barriers to care and poorer outcomes. It is important to understand how racism and ableism are linked and the impact on Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) with disabilities/special health needs and their families in Minnesota.
1.6 Build Partnership and Capacity through MDH’s Disability Health Equity Collaborative
MDH’s Center for Health Equity, the Health Promotion and Chronic Disease Division and the CYSHN Section have partnered to build a Disability Health Equity Collaborative across the entire agency. A charter has been created and several working groups have been launched, including the Disability Data Affinity Group. The Disability data affinity group has developed draft data standards, and for the rest of FFY 2023 and into FFY2024 will be developing a plan of action for a disability dashboard.
Quarterly meetings of the Disability Health Equity Collaborative will continue through FFY2024 and beyond. During these quarterly meeting, updates and information around activities related to disabilities across the department will be shared and there will be a shared learning opportunity on a topic related to disability.
As the work of the Disability Health Equity Collaborative moves forward, additional staff dedicated to the work are gradually being identified and invited to participate. A proposal for additional funding for this work was put forward during the 2023 legislative session, however the proposal ultimately did not pass.
C. Strategy C: Construct a Competent and Well-Compensated Workforce
1. State Level Activities
1.1 Increase, Develop, and Retain the Home Care Workforce
In FFY 2024, Minnesota plans to focus work on increasing, developing, and retaining the home care work force. We are defining the home care workforce as those direct support professionals who provide care to persons with disabilities and special health needs in the home. This can include, but is not limited to, personal care assistances, home health nurses, and support staff.
As a state, Minnesota has done a lot of work around workforce shortage issues – and yet significant gaps remain, contributing to a public health crisis impacting persons with disabilities and special health needs and their families. As a first step, we plan to analyze the landscape around the issues facing the home care workforce and learn more about “who” is doing “what” in combating these issues. This will include participating on various committees, groups, and discussions that have been assembled by various state agencies and advocacy organizations. Through this participation, MDH staff will work to figure out where gaps exist and determine where we can take a role in solving issues. Our goal is to develop a plan of actionable steps that we can take as a public health department to help build from or enhance the work being done to better increase, develop, and retain our home care workforce.
1.2 Support Family Organizations to Engage in Policy and Systems Change Efforts
Minnesota has developed a timeline and plan to engage family support organizations by conducting an environmental scan, including launching a survey with the help of a Think Tank group who is providing insight and guidance through every phase of the project. The Think Tank is a small group of representatives from diverse “special health needs” organizations. The survey and scan efforts will involve a snowball approach. The survey will close April 2023 and in person or phone interviews, targeting a diverse audience will take place in May/June 2023From the environmental scan, we hope to learn who is supporting families of CYSHN and disabilities, how we can better communicate with family support organizations, and what the needs and challenges these organizations are facing. A technical assistance and engagement plan to family support will be developed based on what we learn from the environmental scan and with input from the Think Tank. From this plan, an engagement strategy and TA sessions will be launched in FFY2024.
D. Additional Related Activities
1. State Level Activities
1.1 Promote the Charting the LifeCourse Framework Across the State
Minnesota has partnered with the National Community of Practice (CoP) for Supporting Families on implementing facets of the Charting the LifeCourse (CtLC) framework into our work with people with disabilities and their families, caregivers, and support persons (formal and informal). Staff from the CYSHN Program will continue participating on a leadership team comprised of representatives from the Minnesota Departments of Human Services, Education, and Employment and Economic Development to help lead this Community of Practice. This team has created a network of Minnesota stakeholders engaged in supporting families across the lifespan using the CtLC framework. The network, MN-Connect, will provide a platform for this growing community of innovators and early adopters to network with and support one another for continued learning and ongoing application. Technical assistance will be provided by assigned staff from the National CoP for Supporting Families as this initiative continues to develop.
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