Program Summaries
Children's Futures focuses our work on four major program objectives.
- Strengthening Parenting;
- Improving Primary Care Systems;
- Improving Child Care Systems; and,
- Integrating Community Support.
Below are brief descriptions of our programs in support of these objectives, our partner agencies by project and examples of impact.
Strengthening Parenting
Health Screens for Pregnant Women
Partner Agencies: Capital Health System, Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital-Hamilton, the Henry J. Austin Health Center
Mothers-to-be are screened in area prenatal clinics. The purpose of the screening is to identify individuals who may benefit from home visiting such as: adolescents; first time mothers; women with cultural, language and/or other barriers; women with substance abuse problems; women with depression or mental health disorders; and, those at risk for domestic violence. More than 50 percent of all pregnant women are screened annually.
All screens are collected for follow-up by Children's Futures' partners.
Home Visiting
Partner Agency: Mercer Street Friends
Based on the results of the previously described screens, eligible women are invited to participate in either the Nurse Family Partnership; the Healthy Families or the TIP home visiting programs. Some women may be invited to participate in a public health nurse program designed for women who have high medical risks.
Impact
Nearly 100% of the pregnant women in home visiting have received prenatal care, their children have secured medical homes and these children have insurance and up-to-date immunizations.
Children's Futures' Centers
Partner Agencies: Catholic Charities, St. Francis Medical Center, Mercer Street Friends, and Children's Home Society of New Jersey
In six locations (see centers section) throughout Trenton, parents and children participate in a range of monthly activities, including parent support groups and programs promoting family bonding, literacy, arts and crafts, nutrition, breastfeeding, English as a second language and music. In addition, individual, group and behavioral health services are offered to families.
Impact
In the last three months of 2007, more than 1,200 individuals participated in the center-based programs.
Father Center
Partner Agency: UIH Family Partners
This center provides fathers with training on parenting and child development. In addition, the center links fathers to the Trenton Men's Collaborative (TMC), a 25 agency consortium that helps men gain knowledge of child development, develop better relationships with birth mothers, provide increased financial support for children, and improve opportunities for employment.
Impact
During October, November and December 2007, sessions at the center drew 201 participants for parenting, child development, enhancing relationships with their children's mothers, anger management and employment preparedness. Graduates from the 12-week parenting program reported improved communication with their children and better understanding of their impact on children's learning. More than 500 fathers have received services through the center since its inception.
Behavioral Health Services
Partner Agency: Greater Trenton Behavioral Healthcare
Greater Trenton Behavioral HealthCare (GTBHC) provides screening for depression and other mental health issues, assessments and linkages to treatment for expectant and post-partum parents.
Impact
In the last quarter of 2007, GTBHC served more than 207 participants from the Children's Futures' program and conducted 20 twice-a-month support group sessions on depression, stress/anxiety, parenting and relationships.
Women and men needing outpatient services or medication were referred to the Birmingham Clinic, or Catholic Charities. Women experiencing domestic abuse or who had histories of abuse as children were encouraged to contact Womanspace, Children's Futures' domestic violence partner.
Improving Primary Care Systems
High Risk Pregnancy Initiative
Partner Agencies: Center for Health Care Strategies (CHCS), New Jersey Division of Medicaid and Health Services, AmeriChoice of NJ, Inc., AMERIGROUP NJ, Inc., Health Net, Inc., Horizon NJ Health and University Health Plans, Southern New Jersey Perinatal Consortium
Children's Futures works with the Center for Health Care Strategies (CHCS), state officials and five Medicaid managed care health plans to improve pregnancy outcomes and the health status of children from birth to age three. This collaborative implemented a Best Clinical and Administrative Practices (BCAP) model, designed to improve quality within Medicaid managed care enrolled members through use of a universal perinatal risk assessment screening tool.
Impact
Through this BCAP's work with obstetrical professionals, women with social risk factors (smoking, domestic violence, substance abuse mental health) are identified earlier and referred to services for appropriate treatment. In 2007, 65% of screened Trenton residents enrolled in a health plan.
Pediatric Primary Care Project
Partner Agencies: NJ PCORE, the Foundation of the American Academy of Pediatrics/NJ Chapter EPIC (Educating Physicians in the Community) program, the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services and 11 medical practices
Children's Futures works with NJ PCORE and the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services to help 11 primary care practices in Trenton implement and measure office-based improvements. This is accomplished through the use of training modules to address early childhood prevention topics including immunization, lead poisoning, suspected childhood neglect and delays, postpartum depression and asthma.
Impact
The training's impact on office practices for participating providers and clinics has resulted in a documented average program increase of 20% in immunization rates and 13% in lead screening rates. In addition, the 11 participating practices (which serve more than 90% of Trenton's children) all have access to or now use the NJIIS (NJ Immunization Information System) to record and report child immunization data.
Reach Out and Read
Partner Agencies: Reach Out and Read (ROR), CampFire USA, eight Trenton medical practices
This program promotes early literacy by bringing these books and advice about the importance of reading into pediatric examination rooms. Children's Futures partners with CampFire USA to distribute new books to thousands of the city's youngest children during their well-child visits at participating medical practices. The distribution of new, developmentally appropriate books is augmented by the encouragement of volunteers (recruited and trained by CampFire USA) who read aloud to young children awaiting services in the physicians' offices.
Impact
More than 7,900 new books were distributed to children and families in Trenton office practices (serving approximately 90% of Trenton's children) during 2007. More than 50 volunteers were been recruited and trained in the ROR model to read to children in waiting rooms. Children's Futures' success in Trenton has been cited by the HealthCare Institute of New Jersey as the impetus for its decision to provide each of the 44 ROR sites in New Jersey with 1,000 new books for distribution to families. Children's Futures' ROR sites will receive 8,000 of these books.
Improving Child Care Systems
Improving Quality in Childcare
Partner Agencies: Child Care Connection, child care centers, family child care homes.
Children's Futures works to improve the quality of early care and education programs for young children through training, technical assistance and child care resource development. A partnership with Child Care Connection (CCC) aims to increase readiness for preschool by ensuring that infants and toddlers receive developmentally and culturally appropriate child care in safe environments.
CCC uses a variety of strategies to improve child care quality including program improvement plans, individualized training, and technical assistance. Child care center directors and staff receive training in program development and center management. Centers also receive small grants for equipment and materials. Early care and education specialists provide bi-weekly site visits which focus on creating safe and healthy child care environments. This includes focusing on a high quality curriculum for infants and toddlers, nutrition education, parent involvement and strengthening staff competency.
Part of this work in improving quality in child care focuses on advocacy and policy development. To this end, Children's Futures is a core partner in BUILD New Jersey, an initiative dedicated to creating an early childhood system and developing a quality improvement rating system for New Jersey.Impact
CCC's technical assistance and training has improved the overall quality of five participating child care centers and more than 20 family day care homes in Trenton. Evidence of this includes results from the use of the Infant/Toddler Environmental Rating Scale-Revised Edition (ITERS-R) for the child care centers. For the family day care centers, results of assessments using the Family Day Care Rating Scale (FDCRS) show measurable gains reflecting increases to "good" care based on a seven point rating system. Directors from child care centers and family day care homes report the program has fundamentally changed the way they operate.
Homevisiting Training
Partner Agencies: Prevent Child Abuse New Jersey, Mercer Street Friends
Children's Futures works with Prevent Child Abuse New Jersey (PCANJ) to provide homevisiting training using the Healthy Families America (HFA) model. This training prepares home visiting staff to provide information, education and support for pregnant women and new parents.
Impact
This training has resulted in well-trained home visitors who are fully prepared in the HFA standards for successful nteractions with families.
Integrating Community Support
Technical Assistance to Organizations
Partner Agencies: NJ Department of Children and Families-Division of Prevention and Community Partnerships, the Support Center of Trenton, Prevent Child Abuse New Jersey, Womanspace and numerous Trenton social service and faith-based organizations
Children's Futures' technical assistance goal is to increase the leadership and capacity of Trenton-serving nonprofit organizations. Recent support to organizations has been in the areas of home visiting training (previously described in the Improving Child Care System summaries), financial management, and domestic violence detection and awareness.
CF and The Support Center for Non-Profit Management provided a six-week workshop series on financial management basics to a second cohort of non-profit agencies starting in December 2007. This is the second time this series has been provided.
Another training and technical assistance program (Project Safe provided by Womanspace) addressed the safety and well-being of women, teenagers and children through safety screenings/danger assessments, referrals and educational services. Individuals at risk for domestic violence also participated in a series of ongoing support groups conducted at the CF centers. Women were referred to the Womanspace Shelter when appropriate.Impact
As a result of the financial management training, organizational leaders have reported improvements in raising individual skill levels and strengthening their organizations' overall financial management capacities.
The 2007-2008 course focused on budgeting (program activity and cash flow), financial reporting, financial analysis, and financial management practices including internal controls. Eight Trenton area agencies participated in this second program. Financial staff and representatives from the boards of the nonprofit agencies attended.
A community forum on non-profit financial management is being planned for a larger group of Trenton agencies.
Communications
Communications support for partner agencies' programs aims at improving their outreach to the community and their overall effectiveness in raising awareness of their programs in support of CF's objectives.
Areas of communications assistance to partner agencies has included: grant proposal writing; message development; special event planning, implementation and promotion; signage and publication content; press conferences; news advisories and news releases; photography; outreach to families; and focus group planning.
Recent examples of this work include participation in promoting programs to: educate youngsters about teen parenting; engage the community in childhood obesity awareness; promote fathers as role model fathers, and, improve involvement of parents in their children's education.
CF also helps partner agencies achieve greater awareness through outreach to leaders of the faith-based community, presentations with community leaders (like the Trenton Council of Civic Associations, Trenton City Council and others) and through the distribution of an electronic newsletter (Weekly Briefing).Impact
Children's Futures' partners report that CF's communications support of their programs has resulted in greater awareness among residents, decision-makers, and the media of the services being provided to children and families.
Forums and Workshops
Partner Agencies: Trenton Board of Education, National Nurse Family Partnership Office
Children's Futures sponsors and/or supports forums and workshops throughout the year to promote best practice and strategies to translate research into practice.
During the last quarter of 2007, CF and the Trenton Public Schools presented the first in a series of informational workshops focused on the development of children. The workshop focused on projecting the service needs of children and families and ways to assist caregivers and educators to enhance school readiness for children before they enter kindergarten.
CF's involvement in a statewide Nurse Family Partnership (NFP) policy conference in December at the Trenton Marriott helped attract approximately 200 health and social services practitioners, policy leaders and regulators from throughout New Jersey. NFP is an evidence-based, nurse home visiting program that works to improve the health, well-being and self-sufficiency of low-income, first-time parents and their children.Impact
Children's Futures' partners report that these trainings have enhanced their: abilities to reach, identify and respond to families with issues involving: prenatal alcohol exposure; teen pregnancy; domestic violence; degree of father involvement in their children's lives; and level of participation in their children's education.