Realizing Medicaid’s Potential to Support Young Children and Families: From Policy to Meaningful Systems and Practice Change
This session was presented during the BUILD 2022 National Conference.
Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program serve roughly half of all young and the vast majority of low-income children under age six. In recent years, a number of states have taken steps to improve Medicaid’s ability to more effectively serve young children and their families from screenings to needed interventions, such as parent-child therapy. Broad awareness of the maternal health crisis has further compelled states to adopt health equity priorities in state Medicaid programs to more effectively reach and serve communities of color. The children’s mental health crisis coming out of the pandemic also raises questions about opportunities to better address children’s social-emotional development before they reach kindergarten. As states advance new policy changes, such as 12-month postpartum coverage or new screening requirements in pediatric primary care, what steps are needed to ensure that these improvements translate to change at the systems and practice levels? As many states seek to advance health equity as part of their Medicaid priorities, where does sustained community and family engagement come in to ensure implementation of new policies works as intended? This session will feature national and state perspectives from Oregon and Washington on opportunities to realize the potential of Medicaid to make lasting improvements for young children and their families.
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Advocating for Early Intervention Our Passion, Our Future
Archived Webinar April 12, 2024
Parents, advocates, early interventionists, and their partners in four very different states will share their experiences to discuss how they formed new partnerships to strengthen Early Intervention and their struggles and solutions. Key themes including equitable access, adequate funding, workforce recruitment/retention, and family voice in decision-making will be highlighted.
Reducing Disparities for Latino Children and Families: A National Latino Infant Policy Agenda Provides Solutions
Blog April 10, 2024
BUILD believes that to effectively meet the needs of young children and their families, we must recognize existing disparities, including opportunity and achievement gaps. Therefore, we see the urgent need to support policy solutions to better serve Latino infants, toddlers, and families.
Operationalizing High-Quality Dual Language Programming: From the Early Years to the Early Grades
Report April 9, 2024
The aim of this brief, from Children's Equity Project and The Century Foundation, is to operationalize what high quality dual language immersion looks like for infants/toddlers, preschoolers, and students in Kindergarten through second grade. The brief provides an overview important context and core concepts foundational for this work, including a description of emergent bilinguals in the United States, a strength-based approaches to bilingualism, a historical account of bilingual education, and a description of how DLI education is part of a broader, equitable child serving system.