Region 10 and Alaska Native T/TA Health Conference Call Notes
Topic: Bright Futures
Speaker: Jean Myers, University of Washington
Moderator: Allison Hertel, T/TA Health Specialist
January 17, 2007 11:00 am Pacific Time
Allison Hertel:
Good morning everybody. I just want to thank everyone for joining us today for the T/TA Health Conference Call.
I hope that everybody was able to get a copy of the PowerPoint presentation and a sample chapter from the new Bright Futures Guidebook. At the end of the conference call, we'll be giving you information on how to order the guidebook or get one free copy, and hopefully that will help. And then also if you would like a copy of the PowerPoint presentation and did not get it, go ahead and send me an email with your name and your fax number and we'll try to get that out to you either during the call or quickly after the call today. My email address is allison.hertel@acf.hhs.gov.
To begin, we wanted to do this call about Bright Futures for a couple of different reasons. Washington State first stated in the (current) project on - or some programs on Washington State first stated in the (current) project on Bright Futures and integrating it into the program.
And we're hoping this call will focus on these materials and I'm going to use them to improve the quality of health promotion and prevention services to the kids and families in your program.
I know that as health coordinators within programs as we're struggling with resources and people being pulled in a lot of different directions, it's often challenging to make health a top priority and keep it a priority. And Bright Futures has a lot of really creative great ways to help integrate health throughout the program and make it more visible.
At this time, I would like to introduce Jean Myers. Jean works for the Center on Human Development and Disability at the University of Washington and has been involved with Bright Futures projects throughout Washington State. Jean is going to be speaking about the Bright Futures project that was done in Washington that led to the development of the Bright Futures Guidebook, and we'll be offering some practical strategies on how to implement it in your Head Start Program.
Jean Myers:
I want to start by thanking Ali, especially I'm thanking all of you for your attention to this. It's always been one of the reasons that we enjoyed this specific project around Early Childhood so much as that we have - from the beginning had a great deal of both fun and interest with, you know, working with Head Start and Early Head Start programs in Washington State. So, it's a particular honor to share this even further, and I hope to hear more from any of you who are interested in how you want to make this or the materials or what particular interest you have in your own programs. What I'm hoping to do today in the time that we have is to introduce you briefly to Bright Futures, for those of you who are not familiar with it. And that will be very brief. And for those of you who did get the PowerPoint, it will be included in that. Then, I want to tell you a little bit about our Early Childhood project because it was the base for the guidebook that we are really here to talk about. And then, the lessons learned really came from that project and the sites that participated in that project with us.
And then, I want to take a look at the guidebook itself if we have a participant hopefully who will join us on the call who participated in our project too, and hopefully, give you a little bit of feedback about her own experience as part of the Bright Futures project and then have some time for questions.
I'll start working with the PowerPoint for those of you who do have it. And I'm going to skip onto "What is Bright Futures?" and which is I think about the third slide.
And really, Bright Futures came out of the National Center for Education in Maternal and Child Health funded by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau. And it is really an accumulation of efforts nationally to look at health supervision for kids, birth through 21.
So, what is Bright Futures? It's a set of principles. It's the tools. It's the actual book. It's a big stack of book. It's the theory based on a developmental approach to health supervision. And it looks a lot of systems as well -- policy systems, community systems, health systems and family.
So, the overall belief is that every child deserves to be healthy, experience joy, have self-esteem, have caring family and friends (unintelligible) in life. All of these I think matched a Head Start view, a great deal.
The core concepts that support Bright Futures -- this is on the next slide for those of you who have it -- are the prevention work. And we all know and I think make use of prevention programs that have become part of our lives, things like immunizations, things like the Back to Sleep Programs or bicycle helmets.
Then, there's a belief of fundamental concept underlying the Bright Futures materials that families matter, not just as recipients of care but as critical participants in care -- as guiders of care.
And that helps everyone's business, so that means the bus driver. And that means educators. And that means the librarians as well as the primary care systems that families have. So, we each become partners. And that word will recur over and over.
Taking a look at the next slide, I want to talk a little bit about the Bright Futures health promotion materials for those of you who don't have them. If you do have them, you might pull them out or ask yourselves and just page through the (matters) we're talking about.
And again, I'm going to make this very brief because we're going to focus today more on how they have been used and what the Early Childhood sites have done with them. So, the health promotion materials breakdown into two camps, but I always encourage groups to - this is kind of the way they're promoted on the national level. And we find in audiences that we've dealt with that, people will find themselves in either of those categories depending on their experience and their need, so feel free to branch out.
The health promotion materials include things like general health supervision guidelines, guidelines for nutrition, for physical activity, for mental health and for oral health. And some of those come in a pocket guide or small version. There are also family materials that include an encounter form. We've used this in - a lot and a lot of Early Childhood settings have used this alot. And they are in kind of notebook form that includes health supervision guidelines for each of the well-child visits according to the EPSTT schedule.
So, the well-child schedule that the federal government supports and the American Academy of Pediatrics supports, there are materials in there for each of those visits that help staff and families know what to expect at each of those well-child visits, what kinds of questions to ask, what kinds of issues to be anticipating and things that they might take in with them to a visit.
There are also tip sheets that can be useful for their - in a broader developmental stages but they are really useful for general health information for a classroom setting or perhaps for a newsletter or that kind of thing, and I refer to those tip sheets.
For everybody to know, the Bright Futures materials - and actually if you were not able to access either of the PowerPoint slides or the materials in the other way and have access to a computer now, you could actually log on to the brightfutures.aap.org site and take a look at any of the materials as we're talking there. So, that's http://www.brightfutures.aap.org. All of the materials are available at this time for ordering, for viewing and for downloading via the Web site, via the national Web sites.
Keep that in mind. Some programs have budgets that allow them to purchase materials and others don't. For our Early Childhood project, we had the budget to provide some materials but if you have someone who's able to download favorite materials and you can easily put them to use it that way.
It was useful as we - and we begin to talk about Bright Futures and Early Childhood settings. We've had experienced working with Early Childhood settings in Washington State for many years. And through them, we have learned that this has been a very useful partnership.
When we had the opportunity to branch out a little bit, we really - we're hearing from other state partners that it was really important to focus in on the importance of health and its relationship to early learning.
We actually have a section in the guidebook that deals specifically with that and entire chapter that focuses specifically on integrating those issues. But we really - the Bright Futures materials really are based on that feeling that systems need to collaborate in order to meet that needs of the kids. And at that point when we understand that health and education are integral to each other that we can move forward in both of those settings.
For the Early Childhood project, we included programs in Washington State that were Head Start - Early Head Start, Washington State Early Childhood Program, ECAP and childcare programs that were associated with the above. We did not take on freestanding healthcare programs.
Just for purposes of what we felt we could do with the money that we had, our interest - and again, I'm moving forward. So those of you following along in the PowerPoint, I'm now on the slide that talks about desired outcomes. It's Slide Number 9.
Our hope was that we would really focus in on matching Bright Futures use to required health standards that if we made this - and if we work with programs to make this as useful as possible that hopefully we could - first of all, we'd match the need, and secondly, we'd help improve outcomes in those areas.
Knowing that our program dates may not - might not have been able to match the measurement of those health standards, we knew we wanted to look at other outcomes and include it on what we're going to refer to as KAP surveys. And those are - we wanted to look at knowledge, skill - knowledge, attitudes and practices. It's where the KAP comes from. Knowledge about health, attitudes related to providing health supervision and practices in that regard in the various different health areas that program chose both for the health advocate staff, the direct service staff and the families who participated in the project.
What we'll talk about again over and over is that we ask programs to think about what it was they wanted to accomplish and focus their resources on that. We spent a lot of time talking about that.
So, the next slide -- Number 10 -- is a slide that just kind of graphically displays what our project looked like. And it was over - for the sites that were involved - and there were 11 ultimately - they were involved with the Early Childhood - with the Bright Futures project for 18 months. During that time, there were three trainings and technical systems throughout data collection, throughout - and those were trainings that the Bright Futures pilot site staff participated in, then they went back to their own staff. It was kind of a trainer model and they went back to their own staff in their own sites and taught the materials further, did their own trainings as they (unintelligible).
We attempted to - moving along to Slide 11, we attempted to get a representation in Washington State of a broad range of a site to participate. We chose sites that were in urban communities that had racial and ethnic diversity and ended up including ten Head Start programs, six Early Head Start, five ECAP and two childcare programs. There was an agreement by each of the sites that participated to establish a Bright Futures team and then to develop a Bright Futures work plan to conduct their own trainings, to complete the pre-imposed evaluation measures and to use Bright Futures materials in their health promotion systems.
Each of those steps, I think, and I'm hoping that Darle (Walla Walla Public Schools) can speak to this a little bit if she ends up joining us on the call. I think required a certain amount of commitment rather than dollars on the part of the staff that participated and I think was critical to their success with the project as well as the Bright Futures materials that you're hearing my personal viewpoint there.
The project management team as part of the project - each of the sites received Bright Futures materials for their pilot sites, trainings and regular communication and consultation as well as consultation with each other.
And I think most of the sites benefit a lot from intermittent contact with each other to find out how different sites put materials to use.
We used evaluation measures to kind of looking at those knowledge, attitudes and practices. We looked at family service agreements and how often family service agreements included health as part of a family goal. We try to look at the PIR Program data. And we also used focus groups and interviews to glean some qualitative information.
Now, we're going to look at the first objective, which was to look at required health standards. And we're including this specific program information because I'm hoping that each of you will be able to share what not so much this particular project accomplished but what lessons it can help us glean from, how it was put into place and what you might be able to do in your own settings.
We found that using the program data was challenging. As we expected, the amount of data that was available to us was - did not match clearly the dates of our project. So, we didn't actually have to follow up (unintelligible) data by the time our project needed to be wrapped up. So, what we have is kind of intermittent - interim data. But I wanted to share it with you because in this particular instance, it seems pretty notable to me.
The way the data is collected is on a larger scale than the individual programs that we've worked with. So, there's a scale issue with the data as well. But this first - Slide Number 16 takes a look at dental exams in ECAP programs. And in those three programs that are on the slide, between these - children that received dental exams within the first 90 days.
And so, in each of those three sites, between the year prior to the project and the subsequent year, there was a pretty substantial change in the number of kids who are receiving those dental exams in the first 90 days. Again, we can't make any real conclusion based on it or really say what - how much of a role Bright Futures had to play in these changes. However, it did seem clear that there were changes in those three participant sites.
I've included a quote from one of the project members on Slide Number 17, which really exemplifies what we heard from many of the different participants, which was really that Bright Futures has strengthen their health promotion because it was easy to access trusted information.
Some of the health advocates actually went so far as to when they were in the position of supervising others giving like family support, staff giving health information to families. If they use Bright Futures materials, they didn't feel that they needed to supervise it any further than that versus using an Internet searches which might take them to multiple different places. Objective tool, look at the knowledge, attitudes and practice surveys a little bit in some of that data.
Slide Number 19 for those following along. The blue bars in the front are the - prior to the project data and this is looking at the issue of the program staff and their - to present of the director of the staff that's strongly agreed or agreed that they have the knowledge and skills to talk about those health issues noted on the bottom. In each case - in each of those health categories, the staff felt that they had the knowledge and skills significantly more after the project.
And then, this Slide Number 20 relates to their comfort, talking about those health issues with families.
Again, blue is before the project and gold is after. Again, we see increases across the board.
Number 21 is a little trickier to read. But we're looking at the frequency that direct service staff discussed health promotion issues with families. And what we were - and what we're looking for between pre and post is that in the pre-bar -- the blue bars, the number of folks that did not discuss health promotion on the left side is higher or discussed it very seldom.
And as the project continued, the gold bars, we see a larger number of - the gold bars are higher on the right. So we see an increase in frequency that staffs were talking about health promotion issues with family.
This next slide, Number 22, again, this one specifically relates to mental health and behavior issues but again, we saw an increase in the frequency with which the staff -- direct service staff were felt comfortable and reported that they did discussed mental health and behavior issues with families.
This approach from direct staff and Number 23 that said, we're not nurses and not medical professionals, the Bright Futures information if from a credible source. So that gave them additional comfort. We can be more successful with families because we have this information as a tool.
And then, they also felt that if they were at home visits and didn't have an answer, they could always come back and check and then, follow-up with families.
I'm going to move on to - actually, Ali can I take a moment to find out if Darle is on the call?
Allison Hertel:
Let me just do a quick introduction to everyone on the call, Darle Smith is the Health Manager from Walla Walla Public Schools who participated in the project. And I asked her to speak a little bit about her experience and how she was able to really integrate health throughout their program.
(Darle Smith):
Bright Futures project was really exciting because previously, it didn't seem that within our program, it helps with a huge focus. And so, when we started going to the first meetings, we were required or asked to develop work plans. And being in Head Start, we all know how work plans play a large part.
And this was a way - developed the work plans and this was the way for me to kind of stay on task and to not let the issues that I - over the goals that I had set or wasn't - I wasn't able to let it go because I had developed these work plans. And I was able to have something to really follow.
I had chosen the talks - we've also talked to the staff about it but the health issue we planned to work on was childhood obesity. We had seen it increased over the years in the children who are coming into the program. And we wanted to have a way to not only educate staff but educate parents on this topic. We found after discussing things with staff, they were pretty excited to do this. And basically, it worked stronger in a classroom because of the activities we decided to do.
Integration into the community and within our school district was very important because I wanted to have something that would transition well from our program into the school districts. I was able to actually talk to the P.E. teacher and see how she felt this - our project would go into her program with P.E. And in discussing this with her, I found that it was a perfect tool.
They had had in the past a walking program within the elementary program. And so, this was perfect for us to integrate the K (Kindergarten), you know, K through 5 Program with our program.
We chose an activity of implementing a walking program. This was a way to address the needs of children within the classrooms who maybe we had concerns about, without singling them out and having, you know, real individual program.
And so, it benefited everybody in the program but it also benefited staff. So, I have found that their attention to health has increased both through this and just talking about Bright Futures.
So, we implemented the program where the kids would walk an eighth of a mile during their outside gross motor time. And then, we found that the kids enjoyed this so much, they actually ended up going more. And whether they were walking or running, the kids really had a good time. Then, they were able to do their gross motor activities after that.
At the end of the year, the kids had accumulated 12 miles of walking and parents were extremely impressed by this. And that was our main purpose, was to not only heighten staff awareness but also heighten families' awareness around the areas just basic health and nutrition but specifically childhood obesity. And we found doing this also that, in the past, we never saw - really didn't see parents developing health goals when they develop their classroom goals with their teachers. But we saw an increase in this also which was really exciting. So the family advocates were able to work on families with this also.
The family advocates have really enjoyed Bright Futures. One of our activities with parents was to do the health organizers and often - I don't know about anybody else. But, I tend to even lose my kids' shot records. So, it was a way for families to keep all of their health materials together and - which will help them when they transition into kindergarten so they'll have access to that. I have found after several years of being in the Bright Futures project that our family advocates are still doing this with families. So, this has been a great tool, another way to implement this goal.
We also, every month would do a little monthly newsletter tip about health, whether it was a walking program but just general health ideas which we found really useful for parents and we also just, you know, posted information on a bulletin board about health.
So, the focus on health, because we all know that health - if kids aren't healthy, they're not going to learn. So, I think it brought the teachers' awareness to the importance of health and how we need to identify a need of health concerns before they even begin in their classroom curriculum and projects in there.
Allison Hertel:
Thank you, Darle. That was great.
(Darle Smith):
That was a huge amount of stuff.
Jean Myers:
I'd just like to comment a little bit on (Darle)'s description because my memory was that, I think (Darle), you started out as a team of one.Is that right?
(Darle Smith):
That's correct.
Allison Hertel:
Yeah.
Jean Myers:
You were solo. And I think one is a critical.
Jean Myers:
Exactly. Because I think that what you focused on from the beginning was your partnerships and, you know, you found a partner in the P.E. - in the P.E. staff.
(Darle Smith):
Uh-huh.
Jean Myers:
And really the teachers are much more on board now. And if I remember correctly, you did a presentation to the school board as well...
(Darle Smith):
Yes.
Jean Myers:
...and are now promoting this within your community to develop that walking program or the walking task?
(Darle Smith):
Correct. And I talked to the district health nurse, and I think even just from what we did, they totally increased looking at health within pretty academically. It's kind of worked across the whole board. It's been really exciting to see some of the changes and the heightened awareness about this.
Jean Myers:
Very cool. Thank you for joining us.
(Darle Smith):
Thank you.
Jean Myers:
The other thing I wanted to mention was that Darle brought up a good point which was the structure of the trainings and we asked each of the, I kind of skipped over this part, we asked each of the participants on sites to focus on well-child health care as one area of focus with their teams and to focus on another area of their own choosing, be that mental health, nutrition, oral health, physical activity.
And in Darle's case, they're really focusing on nutrition and physical activity and did an incredible job. They posted the feet for each of the kids like a little cutout foot on the - in the hallways of the school. And it was very cool to see on, you know, lots of little feet running up and down the hall with kids' names on and how far they've walked and all of that.
Darle Smith:
Two hundred feet.
Jean Myers:
From each of the sites, we really learned a great deal of information about how each of them took that on strategically. But for some of them, it really did make a big difference in terms of their partnerships.
I know one of the health advocates (unintelligible) - if I can relate her story for moment was that she - probably because she needed administrative buyoff to participate in a project to begin with. Suddenly, she had access to providing training and consultation to the education staff that she hadn't previously had or at least it facilitated the relationship that she hadn't felt so easy with before. And I think as a result of some of the work that they've done that the education staff are much clearer about when kids are having health issues and what impact that's having in the classroom on their behavior and their attendance and other issues. So, she's seeing a lot more interest and getting a lot more specific requests from them for other information for families. So, each of the sites really had their own story to tell in terms of how they took on a project and that takes me back to the guide book.
Jean Myers:
Okay. I'll keep going.
So at the last slide, I believe on the PowerPoint - no. Actually, there are three more slides but we'll talk a little bit about the guide book itself. For anyone who has it - the file in front of you on your computer, you could take a look at that now. I'm going to take a look and just kind of tell you what all is in there. We really have lots of the lessons learned from each of the sites that participated in the project.
But in addition to that, we have a lot of the training materials that were used throughout the project, both ones that the University of Washington staff used in providing to the other sites as well as training tools that other sites developed and modifications activities that they developed as part of the project. So, it's an accumulation of many, many things.
We have an introduction first of all, to the guide book. We have an introduction to Bright Futures in there. There's a chapter on making connections to between health and early learning and Bright Futures. And there's also a chapter just kind of an overall getting ready to use Bright Futures Chapter on how to build and sustain a Bright Futures plan.
Then there are six chapters on different Bright Futures topics. So one on well-child care, one on how to use a Bright Futures health organizer which Darle mentioned, one on oral health, nutrition, physical activity and mental health, and those all have the same structure.
So, they each talked about how to develop a Bright Futures plan and make use of the materials and how to s tructure an action plan with each of those separate materials in mind. If your programs, for example, wanted to just focus on oral health, you could just start there in Chapter 7 on oral health, and work through it. All of the materials that you would need to access are there for your use just focusing on that section. And then there is a set of appendices at the back that includes a glossary of different programs, also on guidelines for using PowerPoint presentations. And we've also included with the guide book a CD that has all of the training materials included in it.
Chapter 5 is the one that Ali sent out. And I'm going to take a look at that with you right now if we can and then we'll turn it over to questions. Each of the chapters starts out with a discussion of well-child care and health supervision. This chapter is specifically related to well-child care. So, there's a little bit of background information depending on the topic at the beginning of each chapter.
And then, we move on to what materials Bright Futures has that are related to that topic. Obviously, there are many, many, many materials out there that would augment your work in any of these topics. But specific to Bright Futures, these are the materials that Bright Futures has to offer specific to these issues. And in terms of well-child care, that includes the encounter forms for families, a coloring book for kids -- that's the Bright Futures activity book the family could teach and also the guidelines for health supervision.
Then throughout the chapter, you'll see that there are action steps and action plan. Step 1 is like preplanning, taking a look at your own system to kind of getting an initial assessment. It doesn't have to be formal but knowing more about what your system needs are or what your family's needs are. And then - and how you deal with those to begin with.
Step 2 is identifying a goal that's realistic and measurable. And we talk a little bit about how you do that.
Step 3, measuring the current status.
Step 4, planning trainings. And again, there are trainings that are kind of ready sets that can be modified but are available for use in the CD.
Step 5 is to plan Bright Futures activities around the goals that you've established. And there are a lot of ideas included in the guide book about how other programs have tried to implement ctivities around these issues.
You'll find light bulbs throughout that are - it's just a little graphic of a light bulb that indicates a hint from trainings that we've done and also there are little suns -- that graphic of the sun that includes an example of an activity that one of the project sites undertook throughout the 18-month period that we wanted to share with everyone.
And then, back to the steps or actually I'll draw everyone's attention to - and since we're talking about well-child care here to Page 50 on your PDF file, and that is a graphic -- one of the programs Chelan-Douglas used - they wanted to make the encounter forms even more accessible to staff to use on home visits with families and to be able to give the give the families when they only had a certain number of copies of the actual book.
So, they made Xerox copies of each of the well-child visits and had them available in file folders for families to be able to just pull out that relevant visit before heading to a home visit and talk with the family and give them a copy.
Sometimes staff had families highlight the issues on that well-child visit form that are most of interest to them and then they have that when they go to the visit.
And then, they also have that to cue them to share with staff when they come back after the visit to talk about - talk through it to come up with the follow up steps.
Step 6 was to repeat the measures so that you get a sense and it doesn't - again, we give you some hints here about how to do that but it doesn't have to be a grand evaluation, actually the simpler the better.
And you've - I think it's been a very helpful part of the process to many of the sites to get some and collect some feedback from participants at the end of the project to see what an impact it had to focus on a health issue and to really follow it through because I think a lot of them were a little surprised at how much change they saw happen over the course of time.
Step 7 was just to review those outcomes and plans from next steps to keep that energy going and take the lessons learned from your own sites and your own issues and list them yet further forward.
And Step 8 which has been a very valuable lesson for all of us is to share your story. So, what the sites have, I think sounds for me, to other at each of the training steps throughout the process in our project is that they've learned a great deal from each other.
And that's required that they share their story. Some of them have been very humble about doing so, feeling that they could have done so much more.
But the truth is that, relative, you know, from the perspective of another site, everyone do need something from everyone else.
So, it was always like a good learning experience. Bright Futures emphasizes health promotion. It emphasizes what you succeed in doing more than what you haven't accomplished. And that's true in kids health as well as it is in the projects you undertake.
So - and then lastly, in each of the chapters, you will see - and at the end of the well-child visit chapter, you'll see a listing of what is on the well-child visit chapter in the guide book CD.
That guidebook CD is set up the same way so that you ought to be able to refer just about chapter and find the materials that are relevant to that chapter and can quickly access the training materials, the - maybe family handouts. Sometimes people develop things like magnets to handouts, the families that had a simple health tips on them or staff training tools, case examples, that kind of thing that are all on the CD.
Allison Hertel:
Jean, I'm just wondering. I'm guessing one of the questions that might come up is how they can get a copy of the guidebook?
Jean Myers:
Thank you. I think that you just wait. We are hoping to have a Bright Futures Web site for Washington State that is up-to-date and easy to access. And we're not quite there.
So in the interim, I am going to refer you to either myself or to Teresa Cooper. And those emails are on - at the end of the PowerPoint, but I'll give them to you now, jm9@u.washington.edu. You can also email Ali and she can share it with you or I'll be glad to if you could get it to me.
Teresa Cooper can directly get materials to you as well, teresa.cooper@doh.wa.gov.
Allison Hertel:
Thank you, Jean.
Jean Myers:
Sure.
Allison Hertel:
For everyone's information, if you contact one of them or myself, I can get you a contact with one of them.
You can get one free copy of the entire guidebook which includes those CDs that Jean mentioned and all the chapters, and it's really a beautiful bound book.
And this guidebook is just a really great and offers practical ideas and activities that you can just take off the CD and implement without having to spend too much time trying to figure out how to make it work in your program.
So that's really what we are hoping - where you could take away from this time today.
At this point, I think we'll go ahead and open it up for questions.
(Roger Slater):
Thank you. This is a focus on health.
I'd like to ask a question about the difference in the standards for ECEAP 2006-2007 and the Head Start performance standards. As I understand that the ECEAP standards are quite specific and this question relates to immunization. If both parents have not wished to have immunizations, they have the options of a religious, medical or personal exemption. My question relates to, if a parent does not wish to sign one of these exemptions but does not also get up-to-date to get their child up-to-date on the requirements, how is that handled both in ECAP and in Head Start?
Allison Hertel:
(Roger), this is Allison.
And just for everyone else on the call, ECEAP is the Washington State funded Early Childhood program similar to Head Start. Many programs in Washington State have both, a Head Start program and an ECEAP program. Roger, I think what I'm going to do is try to connect with you after the call because I worked just with Head Start and what we need to do is also look at the ECAP standards and probably connect you with the program specialist in the state with ECAP just because it's a pretty specific issue for programs that have those ECAP and Head Start and I would need to do a little more research to find out what their requirements are. So if you don't mind, can I connect with you after the call regarding this?
Allison Hertel:
Well, we have just a few more minutes to wrap up. And I think I'll just take this opportunity to say that if you do have any questions or comments about the guidebook or about how to access the guidebook or other Bright Future materials, please don't hesitate to contact me.
And I want to extend a huge thank you to Jean Myers and Darle Smith for sharing the information on the Bright Future projects and really working to focus on health promotion and keeping our kids healthy so that we can focus more on the promotion and less on the treatment side of everything. So unless there is any other question, we will just go ahead and wrap up the call.
Jean Myers:
I have just a few more comments. Of course, I always have something else to say. I wanted to call everybody's attention to - actually the last slide I have on the PowerPoint which is just some tips for getting started and I'm hoping that the stories that you are able to read in the guidebook inspire some of you to take some steps in getting started.
And I just want to share some of the lessons I've learned from some of the sites. And those are to start small -- focusing on one area, you know, when many of you have so many areas to cover and so much to do. So starting small is a really good place to start and make it very reasonable.
And then maybe find one person who has some energy to share it with you around it so that you become kind of a Bright Futures team.
And partnerships can be inside or outside your own individual network, perhaps it's a local librarian that you happen to know that is interested in developing some health materials that would be available to families and kids, or perhaps it's the coworkers that you have lunch with everyday that you can, you know, kind of tap with and develop some plans with, but think broadly, think - think creatively and have fun with it.
And then remember to give yourself a plan, have fun with it and then share your story. And please feel free to share it with all of us.
Actually our project puts together a newsletter quarterly and I love to share stories that folks have come up with and attempting to work with health promotions and work with the Bright Futures materials. So I'd encourage you to contact me if you have questions and stories to tell.
And also, to look at the national Web site, the http://brightfutures.aap.org site and you can link to materials, you can look all over the country at stories of Bright Futures use around the country and places that other people are using the material.
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