Policies for an Equal Start
A Surge of Legislative Victories
In recent months, new laws have passed to increase funding and support for programs that will have a positive impact on children’s health. Improving sickle cell disease care, reducing maternal deaths, addressing the opioid crisis—each of these laws has powerful potential for driving change in children’s health outcomes. Click here to read an update on the legislation.
No More Missed Medicaid Opportunities
Nearly half of all children under five are covered by public health insurance programs. But understanding the ins and outs of Medicaid policy and payment methods gets confusing fast, and sometimes critical opportunities to support children’s health are missed. In this recorded webinar, you’ll learn how to leverage Medicaid programs to support early childhood health and well-being, and hear from a panel of some of the top policy experts in the field. Watch the webinar.
Partnerships Drive Momentum
Maintaining the momentum from the recent policy victories means harnessing the power of partnerships. Bringing together stakeholders from across the children’s health system—healthcare, education, and the justice system, to name just a few—is critical for driving change in policy. In this article, we share five strategies for developing cross-sector collaboration and building the powerful partnerships needed for change.
Be a Children's Health Change Agent
Like you, we have a shared passion for improving the health of every child in every state across the country. Join us in our mission. Take action to make a difference for children now and in the decades to come:
- Donate. Give a gift that supports NICHQ’s initiatives that touch millions of children’s lives. Every dollar raised benefits the health and well-being of children.
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- Spread the word about children’s health initiatives, advocacy and the stories that inspire systems-level change. Share our monthly message on Facebook and Twitter.
What People Are Saying
Our work to improve children’s vision and eye health in the U.S. has always centered on big ideas and massive systems shifts, thus we found the process of continuous quality improvement to be an exciting new way to tackle the challenges we face in our work.
NICHQ has really supported our work by formalizing a process to do PDSA cycles, report and track how our progress is doing. As a data person, CoLab has been really instrumental in terms of gathering the data and tracking it over time.
I am so impressed by the processes that the NICHQ staff use so well to enable teams in many different locations to learn and share, to practice QI processes, to support and inspire each other. NICHQ helps busy people find time to do important and difficult work that improves clinical practice, and to sustain the changes they themselves developed. I’m lucky to have been connected to NICHQ!
For me, NICHQ is uniquely positioned to support complex, system-based efforts to improve child health and healthcare, locally and on a national scale. NICHQ helped my teams succeed by supporting collaboration, information management, and continuous learning. With NICHQ's help, the whole of our work was much greater than the sum of each of our individual efforts!
It has been an honor to work with NICHQ as a Parent Faculty member. I admire how NICHQ continues to center their work around the people directly impacted by it: families and children. They actively work to include these voices throughout project implementation, ensuring that policies remain grounded in patient experiences and feedback. The expertise and professionalism of NICHQ staff has meant that I always feel supported, and confident that all stake holders are included in the process.
I feel like I am always learning when I am exposed to NICHQ. I am actually really going to miss it when this collaborative ends!
Working with NICHQ, I have been able to assist communities all over New York State with their breastfeeding care efforts. The NICHQ staff is experienced, organized and thorough, ensuring each interpersonal interaction is maximally engaging and productive. Because of the way change efforts are organized, I find myself learning new procedural and educational techniques, and even more about my own field! Thanks to NICHQ for including me on this interesting ride.
I was very hesitant about quality improvement in the beginning but NICHQ reformed me. I have been working within our region and our state with health partners for years, but we have made more progress working with NICHQ through your learning process and collaboration than with any other group.
I'm passionate about early identification and connection to services and supports for children and families because we know acting early makes a difference. When I learned that the ECCS CoIIN leverages collaboration, innovation and quality improvement methods to improve early childhood systems, I was thrilled to get involved. There is a great focus on parent engagement too, so I was really happy to join the team and be a part of this great work.
