Project Launch
Illinois
Funded Years : 2009
Project Director :
Felicia Fair Thompson
708-717-9424
feliciafair@illinoisprojectlaunch.org
Address :
2100 S Marshall Blvd
Chicago,IL 60623
Project Status : Active
Project Summary : Project LAUNCH is an opportunity for Illinois to build on two successful early childhood wellness initiatives—the Greater Westside All Our Kids Early Childhood Network (GW-AOK), which serves children and families in the East and West Garfield Park and North and South Lawndale communities, and the statewide Illinois Children's Mental Health Partnership (ICMHP).
Since 2000, GW-AOK has improved coordination and delivery of services to families with young children on Chicago's West Side—an area in which the infant mortality rate and the proportion of births to teen mothers exceed both city and state rates. The area also has the highest number of child maltreatment reports, indicated cases, and children in substitute care in the state. The GW-AOK, comprising 50 community organizations and an active Parent Board, provides services in the areas of physical and mental health, early care and education, family support, and parenting education to 28,000 young children and their families, who are primarily African American or of Hispanic descent.
State-level efforts to improve services for young children have also been impressive. In 2003, the Illinois legislature established the ICMHP to improve the quality, availability, and integration of services for young children and their families. ICMHP has developed a state plan for creating a comprehensive system of prevention, early intervention, and treatment services.
Project LAUNCH Goals
The purpose of Illinois' Project LAUNCH initiative is to integrate behavioral health and primary care to promote child health and wellness.
At the state level, the Illinois Department of Human Services (which is responsible for the state's maternal and child health and mental health programs) will collaborate with the ICMHP to do the following:
• Continue to develop training and technical assistance around the implementation of ZERO TO THREE's DC:0-3R system for diagnostic classification of developmental problems in young children
• Continue to work on the statewide implementation of the Enhancing Developmentally Oriented Primary Care (EDOPC) curriculum to help primary care physicians and other practitioners incorporate screening, anticipatory guidance, and referrals to community resources into their office protocols. Illinois Project LAUNCH will support the development of a curriculum model on screening and referral for the psycho-social concerns of children ages 5–8
• Develop recommendations for preparing primary care providers to serve families affected by substance abuse, mental illness, domestic violence, and parental developmental disability
• Recommend services for high-risk populations, including children in foster care
• Develop strategies to improve the ability of maternal and child health programs to respond to the needs of children with emotional or behavioral problems
At the local level, Illinois Project LAUNCH has three broad goals and related objectives:
• To ensure that children maintain their physical and emotional health by increasing parent knowledge of social and emotional learning and provider knowledge of strength-based practices
• To ensure that families are connected to the services they need by decreasing the number of families who are lost during follow-up and increasing the number of families who receive needed services
• To ensure that children enter school ready to learn by increasing networking, collaboration, system-building, and family involvement
Strategies
To achieve these goals, Illinois Project LAUNCH will employ six key strategies:
• Conduct public awareness activities to promote developmental screening and coordinating with Child Find staff to better coordinate their screening and referral systems and screening delivery
• Train pediatric staff in 19 sites on the EDOPC curriculum, and provide technical assistance to and monthly teleconferences with groups who have been trained to help problem-solve and ensure the success of EPODC implementation
• Hire a early childhood mental health consultant to work with child care providers who do not currently receive Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation services
• Coordinate home visiting programs that are already provided in the West Side community to ensure that all interested families receive home visiting services
• Significantly expand parenting education and improve parent engagement and participation through a series of meetings using the Parent Café model in the target area
In addition, the state will modify its ECornerstone Web-based information management system to track service referrals across all GW-AOK Network providers.
Expected Outcomes
Illinois Project LAUNCH will establish infrastructure at the state and local levels to coordinate and integrate the delivery of behavioral health with other services that promote young child wellness. The project will enable the State of Illinois to strengthen this collaboration and to expand behavioral health services for families with young children, serving 12,200 children each year and an estimated 19,100 children over the life of the project.
Evidence-Based Programs :
Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation
1234 Parents
Enhancing Developmentally Oriented Primary Care (EDOPC)
