| Juneau, Alaska
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Paula McMeen, Program Director
Infant Learning Program
PO Box 34197
Juneau, Alaska 99803
(907) 586-8228
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| Description of effective Public Awareness and Child Find activities implemented in rural areas of your service region.
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- We have a Healthy Tomorrow's Partnership for Children grant in collaboration with the American Academy of Pediatrics that has helped with rural outreach. One outcome of the grant is once a year to take a developmental assessment team and a pediatrician to each of the communities and do a full day of early intervention activities. Having a pediatrician available is a big draw because many of these kids never see a pediatrician. The team sets up at school or a community daycare. They have added on car seat checks, book fairs, and community and provider training, all depending on what each community wants. These events are very well attended. The events are advertised using police scanners, flyers, word of mouth and by connecting with a local person who knows all the kids.
- The American Academy really encouraged us to reach out to the general community to inlcude all the children, then we reach the children with special needs.
- In Juneau we have monthly play groups with developmental screenings for free. We have picked up a lot of kids this way. We find that parents start bringing their friends and those friends tell others. Screenings are done at the play group or parents can schedule it for another time in their own home.
- Another program is a quilt project. The public health nurse in one community and the infant learning teacher present each family that has a newborn with a quilt. They use the Ages and Stages assessment with families, do monthly home visits, and send out monthly newsletters for meetings. This works well for this community where there are only about 20 births year.
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| Collaboration with other agencies in implementing public awareness or child find activities.
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- We collaborate with other groups and attend staff meetings with physicians. We also collaborate with Head Start, Parents as Teachers, Healthy Families, Family and Youth Services. Public Health nurses usually are the best source.
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| Process used to plan and implement public awareness and child find activities.
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- We get together with other managers of programs monthly and try to get staff together quarterly for some sort of training and networking. We have a half day meeting, so there is time for each staff to speak about issues. Rural communities each have some type of training for team building, collaboration and developing transitions processes.
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| How does information regarding your services reach the most rural areas?
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- Through the Public Health Nurses and we have been trying to put ads on milk cartons.
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| Resources received from Local Agencies
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