The American Health Care Act (H.R. 1628) – which the House of Representatives passed on May 4 by a vote of 217-213 – includes several provisions of concern to maternal and child health populations, as outlined during our recent All Member Policy Teleconference. [more]

Both houses of Congress passed, and the president signed, an Omnibus Appropriation bill to fund the government for the remainder of fiscal 2017 (through Sept. 30, 2017). [more]

Health Transformation Systems

Centering on Women in the Postpartum Period
AMCHP is pleased to announce the release of our latest postpartum health and wellness video. This is part of a series of videos focusing on the importance of women-centered care in the postpartum period. [more]

Get Involved

AMCHP's QI eLearning Series Continues!
(AMCHP), in partnership with Population Health Improvement Partners (Improvement Partners), is hosting a Quality Improvement eLearning Series for Title V staff to build capacity to apply QI tools and concepts to their work. The eLearning program is an interactive, virtual series of trainings that will allow participants to apply QI tools or concepts to issues they face working in MCH during virtual trainings with expert QI coaches from Improvement Partners. [more]

Who's Leading the Leading Health Indicators?
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will host a webinar on May 18 from 12:00-1:00 p.m. ET. [more]

#RelationshipGoals
The School-Based Health Alliance's Youth Advisory Council will host a webinar on May 18 from 2:00-3:00 p.m. ET. The presentation will provide youth perspectives on social determinants of health that influence relationships and skills-building tools for identifying unhealthy characteristics. [more]

Integrating FASD with Occupational Therapy
The National Organization on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome will host a webinar on May 18 from 2:00-3:00 p.m. ET. Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) is a brain-based disorder that impacts daily activity. [more]

Learn More About Bleeding Disorders in Women and Girls
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities will host a webinar on May 18 from 2:00-3:00 p.m. ET. [more]

Coverage and Care for High-Need Patients
The National Institute for Health Care Management Foundation will host a webinar on May 19 from 2:30-4:00 p.m. ET. [more]

Engaging Families in Health Care Organizations in Practices
The National Center for Medical Home Implementation, the National Center for Family Professional Partnerships and Bright Futures National Center will host a webinar on May 25 from 12:00-1:00 p.m. ET. [more]

Building Power for Health Equity
Dialogue4Health will host a webinar on June 1 from 1:00-2:30 p.m. ET. The webinar will describe a set of inside and outside strategic practices that public local health departments can use to advance equity. [more]

How Social Determinants of Health Informs Fatality Review
The National Center for Fatality Review and Prevention will host a webinar on June 7 from 2:00-3:00 p.m. ET. The presentation will discuss how child death review and fetal and infant mortality review programs work to understand health care systems, as well as social problems that contribute to fetal, infant and child deaths. [more]

Stay Up to Date!
The Best Babies Zone Technical Assistance Center (BBZ TAC) at the University of California Berkeley School of Public Health invites maternal and child health professionals to subscribe to the new monthly BBZ TAC newsletter. [more]

Special Education within the MENASWA Community
The Center for Teaching and Learning at the California State University Northridge is gathering demographic data about Middle Eastern, North African and Southwest Asian (MENASWA) families of children with special needs who participate in special education programs. [more]

Informing Mobile App Developers
Mobile application (app) developers are seeking young adults (and parents) with pediatric rheumatic diseases to take a survey. [more]

Children's Healthy Weight CoIIN Application Coming Soon, from ASPHN
The Association of State Public Health Nutritionists will release the application for the Children's Healthy Weight Collaborative Improvement and Innovation Network (CoIIN) in early June 2017. The Children's Healthy Weight CoIIN will support state Title V programs' efforts to promote nutrition, physical activity, and breastfeeding. [more]

Publications & Resources

Best Practices/Innovation Station

Project Leadership
Family Voices of California developed Project Leadership, a comprehensive training series designed to help family members develop skills and tools to partner at all levels of decision making and engage in public policy activities in California on behalf of children and youth with special health care needs. [more]

Zika Corner

Health Alert Notice
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a Health Alert Notice with updated guidance. [more]

General & Maternal Child Health

Resources on Opioid Abuse
Point of Health is a free BlueCross BlueShield of Western New York podcast. A recent episode focuses on how to address the nation's growing opioid crisis. [more]

Improving Environment and Transportation System Intervention to Increase Physical Activity
The Community Preventive Services Task has issued a new recommendation to increase physical activity through built environment approaches that combine transportation system interventions with land use and environmental design. [more]

Family Caregiver Support for People with Disabilities
The Arc published results from a survey on family and individual needs for disability support. Data show that family caregivers play a critical role in providing support to individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. [more]

National Profile of Local Health Departments
The National Association of County and City Health Officials recently published two research briefs highlighting key findings in the 2016 National Profile of Local Health Departments. [more]

Developing Culturally Responsive Approaches to Serving Diverse Populations
The National Research Center on Hispanic Children and Families published a guide that identifies easily accessible resources on cultural competency for community-based organizations to improve their responsiveness to the needs of targeted populations. [more]

Health Systems Transformation in MCH

Breaking the Link Between Special Health Care Needs and Financial Hardship
The Catalyst Center presented a webinar to introduce the updated edition of Breaking the Link Between Special Health Care Needs and Financial Hardship. [more]

Child and Adolescent Health

Supporting LGBTQ+ Youth
The Healthy Teen Network created a presentation that outlines important information about gender, sexual identity and better methods to address the needs of LGBTQ+ youth. [more]

Archived Webinars
The School-Based Health Alliance recently archived two webinars. [more]

Supporting Youth with Special Health Care Needs
The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia PolicyLab published a brief that reviews challenges that youth with special health care needs face. [more]

Access to Mental Health Services for Children in Rural Areas
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a brief that presents a selection of potential policies and practices to help rural children with mental, behavioral or developmental disorders access services. [more]

Updated Financing Strategies for CYSHCN
The Catalyst Center conducted structured interviews with Title V/CYSHCN programs, Medicaid agencies and family leader organizations to learn about financing care for children and youth with special health care needs. [more]

Legislation & Policy in MCH

What's Next for Health Policy?
The Alliance for Health Reform and the National Institute for Health Care Management Foundation hosted a webinar. [more]

Women's & Infant Health

Reducing Pre-term Births
The National Institute for Health Care Management Foundation, in partnership with Anthem Foundation and March of Dimes, recently published a fact sheet. [more]

On Your Behalf

Kick-Off for 2nd Round of Adolescent and Youth Adult Health CoIIN
The Adolescent and Young Adult Health National Resource Center kicked off its second cohort of states at the AYAH Collaborative Improvement and Innovation Network (CoIIN) Summit on May 9-10. The AYAH CoIIN Summit brings together the seven new participating states (Indiana, Maryland, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Washington and Wyoming) into one setting to learn more about what it means to be a part of a quality improvement collaborative, and to learn about evidence-based strategies to increase young people’s access to preventive health services and to improve the quality of their health care. [more]

Funding

Health Data for Action
Deadline: May 24, 2017
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is accepting applications for the Health Data for Action program, which will fund innovative research that uses available data to answer important questions. Applicants under this Call for Proposals will write a proposal for a research study using data from the Health Care Cost Institute or athenahealth. The proposed studies should enable relevant, innovative and actionable research that uses available data to answer important, policy-relevant questions. For more information, click here.

Environmental Influences on Placental Origins of Development
Deadline: May 30, 2017 (Letter of intent)
The National Institutes of Health is accepting applications for the Environmental Influences on Placental Origins of Development. This funding opportunity will stimulate multidisciplinary research projects that use a combination of animal/cell models and non-invasive human placenta tissues or biomarkers to investigate how early life exposures affect placental growth, development, function and the subsequent health of the offspring. For more information, click here.

Cost-Effective Childhood Obesity Prevention Strategies in Your Community
Deadline: May 31, 2017
The CHOICES Project at the Harvard Prevention Research Center and Physical Activity within the Harvard University T.H. Chan School of Public Health is accepting applications for a Learning Collaborative Partnership opportunity to support states, cities and counties in preventing childhood obesity by building local capacity among decision makers to choose and implement cost-effective strategies. The CHOICES Learning Collaborative Partnership will support state and local health officials and agencies in the implementation and spread of best practices learned from states demonstrating innovative obesity prevention strategies. For more information, click here.

For more funding opportunities, click here.