Florida Developmental Disabilities Council

Child Developmental Screening Initiative

September 27, 2012

Workgroup on Early Childhood Supports

Members Present: Mimi Graham, Susan Gold, Sheila Smith, Lou Ann Long, Barbara Foster, Vance Aloupis, Allison Parish, Matt Moore & Sandy Neidert

Members Not in Attendance: Cynthia Fuller, Sharon Hennessy, Sharon Carnahan

Staff Support Present: Holly Hohmeister & Martha Harbin

The chair requested that the grid of web-based resources and local organizations that offer early childhood supports be distributed to the committee as the partnership with Health Me Grow has brought new members to the table.

The group discussed the use of the 211 system as the primary point of reference for early childhood supports resources. Issues raised included whether there will be enough funding for all 211 programs throughout the state to reach the level of service Broward 211 offers, and the level of knowledge of the 211 counselors about early childhood support services.

The group approved two new recommendations to the full group in addition to reiterating its previous recommendation that reports issued by the work group contain a statement of concern regarding current Early Steps funding levels and the need to increase funding for early childhood development and intervention services.

The first new recommendation is that the committee or a sub-group of the committee have input into the training of 211 staff with specialized knowledge of early childhood support services, particularly the ability to refer to the Central Directory and Childcare Resources & Referral (CCR&R).

The second is that the list of early childhood supports resources compiled by the committee be provided to all 211 programs in the state to augment their current databases.

In addition, the group discussed the need to market 211 as a resource for early childhood development and intervention services – or as a more general one-stop resource for all things related to health and human welfare concerns - noting that marketing of individual 211 programs, such as summer lunch programs for children, may cause some people to think of 211 as solely a referral source for that program.

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Lou Ann Long had the following comments in response to the draft of this workgroups breakout meeting:

In regards to public awareness materials, my impression was for the Help Me Grow materials to include the 211 number not all the early care & human resource providers in the state of Florida. Currently Help Me Grow is located in Dade and Hillsborough until additional dollars are secured, if I understood correctly. This would also allow for a strategic plan of phase in for the other 65 counties in Florida.

Also we had decision of not just 211 referring to the Central Directory and Child Care Resource & Referral. Dollars would need to be addressed to improve their infrastructures along with 211 to be able to meet the needs of programs. In addition discussion of service dollars needing to be increased for any program to be able to serve the families’ needs.

More discussion definitely needs to occur.