Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program
(Scroll down for CHW Workforce webinar report)
BREAKING NEWS:
Brief Report on HHS Webcast of June 17, 2010
The webchat was facilitated by Audrey Yowell, HRSA National Program Director, with a welcome by Dr. Peter van Dyck, HRSA's Associate Administrator for Maternal and Child Health.
Information Provided
Dr. Peter van Dyck, HRSA's Associate Administrator for Maternal and Child Health, explained that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (now called the Affordable Care Act) included, among other provisions, $1.5 billion in mandatory funding over 5 years for high quality, evidence-based, voluntary early childhood home visitation services. The program will be administered by the Health Resources and Services Administration's Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB) in collaboration with the Administration for Children and Families (ACF).
Grants will be made available to States, Tribes and other eligible entities to deliver voluntary home visitation services to eligible families to promote a range of positive outcomes for children and families. These include improvements in maternal and prenatal health, infant health, child health and development, parenting related to child development outcomes, school readiness, families' socioeconomic status, and reductions in child abuse, neglect and injuries.
Dr. Joan Lombardi, the Deputy Assistant Secretary and interdepartment liaison for early childhood development in the Administration for Children and Families, spoke about the importance of the partnership between MCHB and ACF. ACF is looking at a "prenatal to eight" focus on early childhood and thinking in terms of developing a continuum of services.
Link here for the full Powerpoint Presentation, or here for the webcast transcript.
Presentation points included the following:
- This year the allocation is $100 million; it goes up to $250 in FY11, $350 in FY12 and $400 million in FY13 and 14. This program will be grants to states and territories with a 3% set aside for grants to tribes and tribal organizations or urban Indian organizations. There is also a 3% set aside for research, evaluation and technical assistance related to corrective action. HRSA will be the administrative agency for state grants, and ACF will administer tribal grants.
- These grants are supposed to help states coordinate and deliver services in at least five areas: health, development, early learning, child abuse and neglect prevention, and family support services.
- The program requires states to create or add to programs that support mothers of babies and toddlers based on models with evidence of success, with 25% of funding going to support new and promising approaches. What qualifies as an evidence-based model? The Department of Health and Human Services will be publishing its criteria for assessing evidence of effectiveness in the Federal Register later this summer, and the public will have an opportunity to comment on the criteria.
- Over the summer, states will prepare applications to receive the first part of the federal funding for the program. The first application is due July 9.
- States will need to go through several steps. In the application due on July 9, states must show what level of funding they would need to complete a needs assessment, essentially a survey of how many families across the state could benefit from the program (communities with concentrations of LBW, prematurity, infant mortality, etc.).
- Later this summer, states will be asked to apply for a second grant, and provide more specific information about the data they will collect and how they will coordinate with other programs, such as Head Start. They must also document whether home-visiting programs are already underway in various places across their state, and what level of quality they provide. This information is due on September 1.
- Applications will be due in early 2011 for the full home visitation grants, which will cover a 27-month budget. A base grant of $500,000 will be available for each state, with the total additional amount determined by a formula. In mid-August, the department will release detailed information on what it expects to see in states' applications for the full home visitation grants.
- The governor of each state has the authority to designate the entity (state agency, nonprofit, or collaborative) that will apply for and administer the grants. (The state will be the grantee.)
- Every state needs to submit the initial application of funds, or they will not receive their Title V Block Grant funds.
Download Complete Information
You can download information from this webcast here.
Or link here for the PowerPoint Presentation, and here for the webcast transcript.
For more information, please contact homevisiting@hhs.gov.
Grants to Promote the Community Health Workforce
Brief Report on U.S. DHHS Live Webchat - June 17, 2010
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Health Resources and Services Administration Administrator Dr. Mary Wakefield answered questions about Title V, Health Care Workforce of the Health Reform Act in a Live Webchat at 2:00 p.m. EST on Thursday, June 17, 2010.
HC One Question
Participants were offered the opportunity to send in questions, and HealthConnect One, along with members of the Community-based Doula Leadership Institute Advisory Board sent in the following:
HealthConnect One is the designated Community-based Doula Leadership Institute for the HRSA program, and we would like to know if the community-based doula program will be eligible for funding under Section 5313 in Title V of the Health Reform act.
Section 5313 Grants to Promote the Community Health Workforce, p. 1389 of Title V Health Care Workforce promotes positive health behaviors and outcomes for populations in medically underserved communities through the use of community health workers. The Community-based Doula Program, an evidence-based community health worker program, which is currently run by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau in HRSA, fits the definitions listed in Section 5313 but is not specifically named. Community-based doulas are of and from the communities that they serve, providing home visitation services regarding maternal health and prenatal care to improve infant health, strengthen families, and ensure linkages to health and social services for ongoing success. Senate Durbin, during debate of health reform on December 23, 2009, said on the floor of the Senate, "I am encouraged by the language in Section 5313 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Grants to Promote the Community Health Workforce and want to ensure that the definition of community health worker includes community-based doulas. The Federal Government currently funds community-based doula programs through the Maternal and Child Health Bureau's Special Projects of Regional and National Significance. Expanding the definition of community health workers in the reform bill will give these evidence-based programs greater support to meet the needs of families in underserved communities." We ask that the U.S. DHHS Secretary accept Senator Durbin's request.
Our question was not answered and we will continue to follow up with the Office of Health Reform to get an answer.
Information Provided
The information presented on the WebChat covered the following:
- There has been an increase in the numbers of nurse practitioners and nurse managed health clinics.
- Funding will build on recovery act funding for new health centers and nurse managed health clinics.
- Double the number of people will have access to primary healthcare through community health centers, expected to be 40 million people by 2015. There are 7,900 community health centers right now, but more in development.
- The National Health Service Corp will help pay for education (scholarship and loan repayment), with a commitment by the recipient to provide healthcare services in underserved communities.
- The act has numerous investments in expanding the number and type of primary care providers, including a focus on mental health technicians.
Here is a fact sheet on the workforce areas with new funding opportunities.
HealthConnect One will continue to follow funding opportunities and initiatives that develop with the implementation of health reform. Specifically, we will follow the activities of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services/ Office of Health Reform, as well as HRSA/Maternal and Child Health Bureau, the Administration of Children and Families (ACF), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as well as the Department of Education and the Department of Labor.
We encourage all of you to share information you have that might be of use to communities seeking to start community-based doula programs -- particularly as it relates to community health workers, home visitation, maternal and child health, breastfeeding and early childhood development.
