PDG Newsletter May 17, 2023 Early Childhood Health Consultation Updates The PDG partnership with UW-Madison reaches across two schools, the School of Human Ecology (SoHE) and the School of Medicine and Public Health’s Department of Pediatrics. The Early Childhood Health Consultation (ECHC) program is led by Dr. Dipesh Navsaria and aims to improve the quality of and access to early care and education programs for Wisconsin’s children and families through Child Care Health Consultation (CCHC). Dr. Dipesh Navsaria is a pediatrician at American Family Children's Hospital and is an assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. The Early Childhood Health Consultation (ECHC) is a free program that provides Wisconsin’s early childhood care and education providers with information on best practices related to child health and safety. Currently, the ECHC program offers ongoing support and guidance statewide through an on-demand resource library, monthly webinars and podcasts. Tailored consultation services are currently targeted in the following service areas: Lac Courte Oreilles (LCO) Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Adams County Rock County Ashland County Crawford County Lafayette County Menominee County Price County Vernon County While the goal is to offer tailored services state-wide, this program is currently operating in the service areas listed above. In the meantime, anyone outside of these areas can access the ECHC Resource Library for free. PDG funds were used in Phase 1 of this project to perform a scan of the policies and procedures related to health, safety, and well-being from ECE providers statewide, survey ECE providers, and produce an analysis of gaps and inconsistencies that impact child and family access to ECE programs. The ECHC team created an ECHC website and resource library and has disseminated information to ECE providers and child care regulators on a variety of health-related topics through live and recorded webinars and podcasts. Through this program, early care and education (ECE) providers can receive free health consultations, on-demand training, and tailored resources surrounding best practices for health and safety needs at their child care facilities. The team continues working on the development of a child health policy template to assist providers in communicating best practice related to child health. The ECHC team is also in collaboration with Wisconsin Department of Children & Families licensing & regulation and Wisconsin Department of Health Services to build better understandings related to communicable disease and when children may or may not need to be excluded from ECE settings. For more information we invite you to visit the ECHC website, webinars, and podcasts. Innovative Communities Around Wisconsin DCF launched a new form to collect examples of communities innovating to solve the child care crisis in Wisconsin. We’ve already received some great responses and have added them to our new Innovative Communities Around Wisconsin webpage for others to read about. We’ve recently added a new submission of a child care program that serves children who are blind or visually impaired, including many who are medically fragile or have additional disabilities and their families to help each child develop toward his or her full potential. To read more about them, head over to our Innovative Communities Around Wisconsin webpage, navigate to the Milwaukee tab, and scroll down to Vision Forward. Does your community have their own solutions to share? Submit them through our innovative communities form and you may see them featured too.
