Resources

Administration for Children and Families: Caring for Our Children Basics Health and Safety Foundations for Early Care and Education provides information about the minimum health and safety standards experts believe should be in place where children are cared for outside of their homes. The publication seeks to reduce the conflicts and redundancy found in program standards linked to multiple funding streams.

Birth to 5: Watch Me Thrive! is a coordinated federal effort to encourage healthy child development, universal development, and behavioral screening for children, and support for the families and providers who can care for them. Birth to 5 will help families and providers celebrate milestones, promote universal screenings, identify possible delays and early concerns, and enhance developmental support.

Birth to 5: Watch Me Thrive! A Compendium of Screening Measures for Young Children: The purpose of this compendium is to identify a set of first line screening tools that meet certain quality parameters set by aforementioned federal partners.

Developmental Screening Title V National Performance Measure – New Resources!
The AMCHP State Public Health Autism Resource Center (SPHARC) recently developed a set of resources on state systems for developmental and autism screening. These resources were specifically geared toward helping Title V programs develop action plans around the new National Performance Measure on developmental screening (NPM#6). These resources are a first step based on a scan of current programs and activities and include:

A compilation of example state strategies and strategy measures to improve developmental screening

Including a table of current screening related objectives and measures from select federal and national programs, initiatives and surveys

A case example of how a state could use SPHARC and other AMCHP tools to develop objectives, strategies and measures related to the developmental screening NPM#6
A national landscape document of federal and national programs that have a specific objective/measure around developmental screening
A state matrix of which states have/had certain grant or technical assistance programs related to developmental screening

These resources and more can be found on the SPHARC website.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC): Children: Offers child health spotlights, research studies, health and wellness resources, statistical snapshots, conferences, and events:

Center for Disease Control and Prevention: Infant Mortality discusses the factors that cause infant mortality and the prevention measures that can be taken to reduce these risks.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Newborn Screening provides information about why it is important screen newborns. Newborn screenings include a blood test, hearing screening, and a screen for critical heart defects. Screenings are important because even if a newborn looks healthy, certain medical conditions cannot be seen just by looking.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Nutrition and the Health of Young People provides information about the optimal nutrition young children should be receiving, as well as ways to prevent cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and obesity.

Healthy Children provides information about immunizations, injury prevention, proper car seat usage, preventable diseases in children, and other topics relevant to child care.

Healthy Families America (Home Visiting for Child Well Being) targets overburdened families who are at risk for child abuse, neglect, and other adverse childhood experiences. The age group that the organization focuses on is birth to age 5.

Home Visiting Applied Research Collaborative discusses the national home research agenda to contribute to the improvement of family dynamics, child health, and development.

Maternal and Child Health Bureau (Health Resources and Services Administration) is the government program responsible for ensuring the health and well-being of the entire population of women, infants, and children.

Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Research Network documents early home visiting's potential to improve family functioning, parenting, child health, and development.
Health IT for Children Toolbox is a compilation of health IT information targeted at children's health care needs. It ranges from pediatric electronic medical records to children's health insurance coverage. Also allows for the opportunity to link other child care services to the toolbox, such as Head Start, foster care, and schools. Health IT is intended to be used as a one stop resource to improve child health care.
Talk, Read, Sing Together Every Day! Toolkit is a suite of resources that can help enrich children's early language experience beginning from birth. Resources include tip sheets for families, preschool teachers, and infant/toddler teachers and caregivers, as well as a fact sheet that highlights the evidence behind the benefits of being bilingual and embracing children's home language. All fact sheets are available in English and Spanish.

National Association for the Education of Young Children targets children from birth to age 8 on various issues, including prevention of childhood obesity.

"Early Sprouts" Establishing Healthy Food Choices for Young Children publication discusses ways to ensure that young children are receiving a proper nutrition, which is vital to their development.

National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition is an organization founded on the U.S. General Surgeon's conference on infant mortality. It provides resources and interviews with experts on issues in child care such as birth defects, protecting infants from the sun, and immunizations, and other relevant topics.

National Institute of Child Health and Human Development was developed to conduct and support laboratory research on pregnancy, fetal development, and birth for developing strategies that prevent maternal, infant, and childhood mortality, and morbidity.

National Maternal and Child Oral Health Resource Center addresses current and emerging problems within oral public health for women and children.

Promoting the Oral Health of Children with Special Health Care Needs- In Support of the National Agenda is a publication about caring for the oral health of special needs children.

Title V MCH Block Grant Oral Health Toolkit provides an overview of the 2015 block grant application and strategies state oral health programs may consider to ensure that oral health is an integral part of maternal and child health. The application, needs assessment, and reporting, are based on three-tiered framework of performance measures, outcome measures, and strategy measures.

National Resource Center for Health and Safety in Child Care and Early Education provides helpful information on state regulations for proper child health care.

New Risk Factor for SIDS? Peak in Cot Deaths Associated with Heat Waves addresses the role that hotter outdoor temperature has in Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.

Sudden Unexplained Death in Childhood: A Comparison of Cases With and Without a Febrile Seizure History investigates whether a subset of children with sudden unexplained death in childhood and a history of febrile seizures may parallel those in sudden unexpected death in epilepsy.

Yale School of Medicine: Minding the Baby is an intensive home visiting model intended for first-time young mothers and their families. The interdisciplinary intervention brings together a home visiting team including a pediatric nurse practitioner and a licensed clinical social worker to promote positive health, mental health, life course, and attachment outcomes in babies, mothers, and their families.