F5AC Hospital Outreach Coordinators (HOCs) stationed at Alta Bates and Alameda County Medical Center (Highland) Hospitals enrolled 1,805 high-risk pregnant and postpartum women in various community and County family support home visiting programs. An additional 533 families were enrolled into programs in Contra Costa County.

Programs in which families were enrolled by HOCs:

As part of the effort to coordinate the enrollment process, a Countywide Home Visit Matrix Tool was developed and utilized to ensure families are matched with the appropriate case management program.

SART promoted universal screening using the Ages and Stages Questionnaires (ASQ) at pediatric and early care and education (ECE) sites. Child Development Specialists and an Early Childhood consultant offered site-based trainings to providers on available referral pathways for families with children who screen “of concern”. 

• 23 pediatric sites implemented the universal child development screenings at 18-month well child visits. 55 early care and education classroom teachers were trained in screening with ASQ and ASQ-SE.

From its launch in October 2009 through June 2010, the Linkage Line fielded almost 350 calls.

SART is beginning to systematically:

1. Identify provider training needs and systems barriers for universal developmental screening
2. Create new or enhanced collaborations and facilitate service coordination
3. Reduce service duplication
4. Identify service gaps and community assets
5. Improve families’ experiences accessing needed supports

Peer case consultations and networking sessions offered community grantees a chance to connect with one another, and share experiences, lessons learned, and resources.

 “The networking support has been invaluable… we can [now] establish a comprehensive resource network that can effectively address the complex issues faced by [the families we serve.]”

Community Grantee

SART Family navigators from various agencies meet regularly to learn about the most effective ways to support children and families. Family navigators offer an extra layer of support to families who need assistance in navigating complex and confusing service systems.  They also build families’ capacity to support their child. The networking sessions:

• Increased understanding of the needs and barriers children and families face
  
• Resulted in the development of family navigation protocols that are informed by the best thinking on quality supports for families

The Ages and Stages Questionnaires (ASQ) and ASQ-Social-Emotional (ASQ:SE) Roundtable provided a forum for individuals who train others on using the tools to discuss issues arising from training providers, such as:

• Best practices in training delivery
• Consistent messaging about developmental screening
• How to offer peer support
• Troubleshooting issues related to scoring the results
• Talking to parents about results
• Appropriate follow-up and referrals

F5AC received a multi-year grant from the Long Foundation to expand the Summer Pre-Kindergarten program to 10 additional school sites based on strong results showing children who attended a F5AC Summer Pre-Kindergarten program demonstrated readiness skills comparable to children who had attended pre-school programs.

Success in early care and education (ECE) facilities and capital improvement projects managed by Low Income Investment Fund (LIIF) allowed ECE programs to leverage additional financing to build two new sites in the San Leandro BART station vicinity. 

• LIIF secured a planning grant from the City of San Leandro to study the feasibility of building ECE sites at the BART station.  The City has since committed Community Development Block Grant funds to complete the project
• The site developer committed to fund the project using New Market Tax Credits
• Alba Witkin Foundation also awarded a $25,000 grant to the project

Both SART and Project LAUNCH dedicated resources to identify policy solutions that make universal developmental screening financially viable long term.  F5AC is working with state agencies to identify funding strategies for developmental and social emotional screening, for mental health consultation at child care sites and for expanded home visiting services.

Additional financial support at the federal, state and county levels allowed F5AC to jumpstart many system-wide initiatives that promote child well-being.

Congressman Pete Stark identified funding opportunities through the federal appropriations process to:

• Fund cohort models that support early care and education providers studying for an AA degree at community colleges
• Develop a database for a countywide child referral system
• Fund mental health treatment services for children who have no other payment options

Alameda County Health Care Services Agency leveraged funding through the State CHDP plan to support half the staffing costs for the SART Linkage Line.

The Federal Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) awarded two multi-year grants (Project LAUNCH and Early Connections) to Alameda County and F5AC. These grants allow Alameda County 0-5 providers to build a family-centered, early childhood mental health system of care and to pilot neighborhood-based strategies for improving community networks that serve children 0 – 8 years that will inform state policy.

State AB212 funding continued to support early care and education providers studying for an AA degree at community colleges

F5AC is an active partner in two county-wide efforts, Building Blocks and the 0-8 Convergence projects, to support “…the well-being of our children, starting from the earliest stages of life.”  One of the goals is to identify measurements of child and family well-being that can be shared by all programs that offer perinatal and family support services. Defining shared outcomes will help the county determine where the gaps in services lie and identify where opportunities for shared resources exist.