Improving children's health starts with health insurance coverage, but it goes well beyone that to providing needed services that will improve children's health7 development. A growing body of research shows the importance of incorporating quality primary, preventive, and developmental services within pediatric practices. At the federal level, SCHIP reauthorization provides the opportunity to promote such effective practices. A pediatric health policy expert panel met in December 2006 to explore how such practices could be encouraged as a part of SCHIP reauthorization. Click here to access the synthesis of this discussion and policy options.
The Child & Family Policy Center has developed a Healthy Child Story Book that provides the rationale for such a comprehensive approach and describes the evidence base on exemplary pediatric practices to improve children's healthy development, and identifies the leadership role that the federal government can take in this process. Click here to access this Story Book and its policy options.
New from SECPTAN:
School Readiness Resource Guide and Tool Kit: Using Neighborhood Data to Spur Action
by Charles Bruner with Amy Pettine, Sandra Ciske, Tom Kingsley, Kathy Pettit, Annie E. Casey Foundation, and the Ewing and Marion Kauffman Foundation
Village Building and School Readiness: Closing Opportunity Gaps in a Diverse Society
by Charles Bruner with Michelle Stover Wright, Syed Noor Tirmizi, and the School Readiness, Culture, and Language Working Group of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, with commentaries by Lynson Moore Beaulieu, Hedy Nai-Lin Chang, Dr. Robin Jarrett, Dr. Audrey Jordan, G. Thomas Kingsley, Dr. Jane Knitzer, Dr. Ken Seeley, Ralph R. Smith, and Yoland Trevino, January 2007