We take this opportunity to highlight the groundbreaking work of some of our alumni grantees.

Awarded in 1995: Eligible for national replication under Affordable Care Act

Child FIRST Community Partnership
Bridgeport, CT

• 1995 Awardee - Bridgeport Hospital Foundation, Inc.
• Funding Partners: Children's Fund of Connecticut, Inc, Connecticut Health Foundation, Fairfield County Community Foundation, Greater Bridgeport Area Foundation, William Casper Graustein Memorial Fund, William Bullitt Foundation, United Way of Eastern Fairfield County, New York Community Trust, Cohen and Wolf, P.C., Friends of Pediatrics

In October, 2011, Child FIRST was officially designated as one of the nine national evidence-based home visiting models eligible for funding under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) for national replication.

What is Child FIRST?
Child FIRST (Child and Family Interagency Resource, Support, and Training) is a model home-based early childhood intervention, embedded in a system of care, that works to decrease the incidence of serious emotional disturbance, developmental and learning problems, and abuse and neglect among the most vulnerable young children and families.

Referral to Child FIRST provides:

• Intensive home visiting intervention: This includes comprehensive assessment, integrated family-driven plans, and home-based parent guidance and parent-child psychotherapeutic services.
• Care coordination/case management: This includes coordinated, hands-on connection to community resources for all family members, promoted by strong collaborative relationships through local, community early childhood systems of care or councils. This prevents duplication, gaps, and inefficiency.

Child FIRST Works!
The Child FIRST intervention was evaluated with a very high risk population of young children and families. A randomized, controlled trial demonstrated that the Child FIRST intervention was statistically significant and clinically effective when compared to Usual Care controls at 12 month follow-up:

• Child FIRST children were significantly less likely to have language problems (odds ratio=4.2).
• Child FIRST children were significantly less likely to have aggressive and defiant behaviors (odds ratio=4.8).
• Child FIRST mothers had significantly lower levels of depression and mental health problems.
• Child FIRST families were significantly less likely to be involved with child protective services (by parent report) (odds ratio=4.1).
• Child FIRST family members had a marked increase in access to services (91% vs. 33%).
  At 3 year follow up:
• Child FIRST families were significantly less likely to be involved with child protective services (odds ratio=2.1).
  The results of the randomized trial have been published in Child Development in January/February 2011.

Child FIRST Accomplishments and Impact

• Child FIRST has been designated one of the 9 national, evidence-based home visiting models, eligible for funding under the Affordable Care Act for national replication.
• Child FIRST is the only home-based, mental health intervention for diagnosed young children that receives Medicaid reimbursement in Connecticut.
• Child FIRST’s cost effective home-based intervention and care coordination cost about $6,500 per family of four, compared to $700,000-$900,000 for one year of psychiatric hospitalization for a single child.
• Child FIRST has been recognized by the CT State Legislature, Early Childhood Education Cabinet, CT State agencies, American and CT Hospital Associations, Zero to Three, and state and national foundations.
• The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the CT Department of Children and Families, and 18 other funders have joined in a public-private partnership to replicate Child FIRST throughout CT.

Read the story "Juan and His Mother" written by Child First founder, Dr. Darcy Lowell.
Visit http://www.childfirst.net to learn more about this program.

Awarded in 2007: Collaboration among 4 West Los Angeles agencies

Westside Infant-Family Network (WIN)
Culver City, CA

• 2007 Awardee - Westside Children's Center
• Funding Partners: The Atlas Family Foundation, Jewish Community Foundation, The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation, First 5 LA, The Annenberg Foundation, Carl & Roberta Deutsch Foundation, The California Endowment, The Angell Foundation, Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, Rose Hills Foundation, Carrie Estelle Doheney Foundation, The Ahmanson Foundation, Weingart Foundation, Tikun Olam Foundation

What WIN Does
WIN’s innovative collaborative program deeply integrates its own in-home mental health therapy for young children and their families with express, case-managed access to the medical, social service and early care/education services of its partner agencies.  Through intensive therapy and integrated community services children get what they need to recover and thrive before untreated mental health issues can have long-term effects on health and social, educational and emotional growth.

WIN is a unique blend of old-world service (they make house calls!) and new, web-based infrastructure that keep services manageable for staff and families.  Through its personalized, multi-agency services, WIN and its partners have transformed the lives of hundreds of families by interrupting trans-generational cycles of trauma.  Just as importantly, it has also created a replicable model for a system of care that demonstrates how cross-sector, cross-agency services can work for families—and for the agencies that serve them.

WIN Accomplishments
In its first five years, WIN has won national accolades for its innovative services:

• In 2011, WIN was selected from among 807 original applications as one of 8 finalists in the nation for the Collaboration Prize created by the Lodestar Foundation, an organization dedicated to maximizing the growth and impact of philanthropy;
• In 2008-09, WIN was featured in a white paper by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, as one of eight “exemplary place-based early childhood initiatives,” in the nation that have successfully integrated efforts across multiple service sectors.

Read the story "Finding the Joy in Little Things" as told to Anna Henderson, Executive Director of WIN.
Visit http://www.winla.org to learn more about this project.

Awarded in 1997: Innovative approach to a significant public health challenge

Vote & Vaccinate
Lakeville, CT

• 1997, 2003 & 2004 Awardee - Sickness Prevention Achieved Through Regional Collaboration, Inc.
• Funding Partners: The Seth Sprague Educational and Charitable Foundation, The Torrington Area Foundation, NYS Health Information and Quality Improvement Grant, The Pfizer Foundation, CPRO, Charles E. Culpepper Foundation, MassPRO, The Jessie B. Cox Charitable Trust, REACH Community Health Foundation, Sidney J. Weinberg Jr. Family Foundation, Dyson Foundation, Dutchess County Department of Health, Patrick and Catherine Weldon Donahue Foundation

Vote & Vax is an innovative public health initiative that seeks to immunize Americans from the flu at their local polling places–places expected to draw thousands of people to vote on Election Day. In a sense, Vote & Vax is a public health "2-for-1"- this innovative prevention strategy helps protect voters in the community from seasonal flu and gives public health agencies and other community stakeholders an opportunity to build capacity to respond to public health emergencies and other large-scale events rapidly at community venues.

From its original grant in 1997 for a project called Sickness Prevention through Regional Collaboration (SPARC), this program expanded into a multi-state effort in 2004, and by 2008 delivered more than 21,000 influenza vaccinations at 331 locations in 42 states and the District of Columbia. Of those vaccinated through the project, almost half (47.7%) were "new" recipients, meaning they had either not received a flu shot in the preceding year or would not have otherwise been vaccinated.

View the video story of this innovative project; then visit the Vote & Vax website to learn more.

Awarded in 1996: The Doula Project

Chicago Health Connection Doula Project
Chicago, IL

• 1996 Awardee - Chicago Health Connection
• Funding Partner: The Irving Harris Foundation

Awarded in 1996 to the Chicago Health Connection, the goal of this project was to provide birthing support to pregnant teens in low income communities. The project trained and employed lay women as doulas, or birthing assistants, to develop relationships that provide information, advocacy, and physical and emotional support to birthing teens during the prenatal, intrapartum and postpartum periods.

The four-year project demonstrated the feasibility of the doula model in grassroots communities and by late 2003 the Chicago Health Connection had helped establish doula programs at eight Illinois sites in addition to the three original pilot sites. By the end of 2004 there were 19 doula sites in Illinois.

Expansion continued and by December 2005, Chicago Health Connection had partnered with local agencies to implement replications in Albuquerque, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Denver, Phoenix and Indianapolis. By November 2007, staff at the Chicago Health Connection was working with 34 Doula Projects in 10 states.

Today, HealthConnect One, formerly the Chicago Health Connection, continues to sponsor the Community-Based Doula Program, replicated in 58 sites in 13 states. Federal funding for community run doula programs has been available since 2010. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) sited the success of the Health Connection program when inserting the funding into healthcare reform legislation.

"In Chicago, we have seen how the community-doula model can improve the odds for those young moms and their babies. The Chicago Health Connection [now HealthConnect One] pioneered this model. The group trained mentors from the community to work with at-risk moms, many of whom had few ideas of where else to turn. I am eager to see the Chicago Health Connection model successfully replicated and to make that happen, it is important that new programs have guidance and help to not reinvent the wheel," Senator Durbin said.

View a video story about the doula program; read the grant report on www.rwjf.org; then visit the HealthConnect One website.