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The Sunny Start: Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds initiative is a comprehensive, collaborative, statewide effort to implement a strategic plan to support a coordinated system of resources and supports for young children from birth through age five and their families in Indiana. With funding from the Maternal and Child Health Bureau’s (MCHB) Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems grant, the goal of the project is to ensure that Indiana’s children arrive at school healthy and ready to learn.
The first two years of the grant were dedicated to infrastructure building. Toward that goal, a Core Partners group (functioning as the steering committee) along with five subcommittees was convened. The subcommittees address: medical home issues; mental health and socio-emotional development; early care and education; parent education; and family support. Members included key stakeholders representing families, state agencies, professional trade associations, public and private early childhood providers, etc. They met regularly to develop a program vision and mission, as well as to address service standards, desired outcomes and issue identification. Community Dialogues were also conducted across the state.
In recent years, Sunny Start has supported:
The expansion of the Early Childhood Meeting Place website to provide families and early childhood providers with resource and support information. - A developmental calendar has been developed for families and providers which highlights important health and safety information such as infant and toddler’s nutritional needs, oral health issues, communication and gross motor development. The calendar is available in English and in Spanish.
- A Wellness Passport for Indiana’s Kids, a personal healthcare record-keeping tool that allows parents to collect, track, store and access important information about their children’s growth and development – all in one easy-to-access location. An online tutorial about the passport is available.
- A Special Health Care Needs Addendum to the Wellness Passport, providing additional sections for families raising children with disabilities and special healthcare needs.
- Family Resource Fact Sheets, a series of 25 fact sheets that highlight the basics of key resources available for Hoosier families. They are also available in Spanish.
Social and emotional development in young children continues to be a focus of Sunny Start as the project supports the development of a highly qualified early childhood mental health workforce. Efforts supported include:
- A consensus statement regarding the content and core competencies for social-emotional training activities across all providers/caretakers of young children birth to age five has been developed.
- A tool has been created in conjunction with the Consensus Statement that will help individuals assess the social and emotional competencies that their training addresses.
- A white paper on the state of Infant and Toddler Mental Health in Indiana
- A comprehensive one week Summer Institute in July 2007, which assisted mental health professionals in Indiana to build skills in the area of social and emotional development in young children, infants and toddlers.
- In August 2008, 2009, and 2010, the support for mental health professionals continued as Sunny Start sponsored additional training to help build competencies at the Indiana Infant and Toddler Mental Health Annual Conference.
The Sunny Start Core Partners and subcommittees continue to meet regularly. Over the current three-year grant cycle the initiative will develop opportunities for family leadership, maintain and expand the Early Childhood Meeting Place website, develop a “State of the Hoosier Child” report, implement a medical home learning collaborative and integrate activities related to parent education and medical home into the Early Care and Education efforts.
For more information, please contact:
Project Director: Judith Ganser, MD, MPH
Project Manager: Andrea L Wilkes
Grantee: Indiana State Department of Health
Address: 2 North Meridian St, 8C
Indianapolis, IN 46204
Phone: 317/233-1246 Fax: 317/233-1300
E-mail Address: sunnystart@isdh.in.gov
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