Connecticut Children’s Medical Center – Help Me Grow® National Center

Hartford, CT
November 2017

Overview
The Help Me Grow^® National Center (National Center) is a flagship program of Connecticut Children’s Office for Community Child Health (the Office). In 2010, the National Center launched with plans to expand the Help Me Grow model to 16 affiliate states and build the foundation for ongoing nationwide expansion. Today, the National Center leads a National Affiliate Network of 25 affiliate states that operate more than 50 Help Me Grow systems. The National Center provides technical assistance to affiliates that work to advance early detection and intervention for vulnerable and at-risk children, from birth to age 8, who show signs of developmental or behavioral challenges. This is a population that often eludes detection and intervention until problems escalate and become far costlier to manage. Through the program, children are referred to beneficial community-based programs and services.

In addition, the National Affiliate Network provides a path for the Office to disseminate innovations addressing critical needs and gaps to children and families beyond Connecticut. Such innovations include Connecticut Children’s Mid-Level Developmental Assessment and the Care Coordination Collaborative Model. In February 2017, the U.S. Departments of Education and Health and Human Services issued a joint policy statement citing Help Me Grow as a system that builds collaboration across sectors, including health care, early care and education, and family support. Our research shows that Help Me Grow strengthens families, promotes children’s optimal healthy development, and reduces the expense of unnecessary medical referrals.

Impact
Help Me Grow has served children and families for 20 years. It launched as a pilot project in Hartford in 1997, under the leadership of Paul Dworkin, M.D., and expanded statewide in 2002. Our affiliate network, overseen by the National Center, grows every year. Three new affiliates were added in 2016 and four more joined in 2017. Collectively, the Help Me Grow National Network serves approximately 75,000 families through HMG Centralized Access Points across the country, reaches around 150,000 family members through community events, and provides training to nearly 2,000 physicians every year.

Lessons Learned
The National Center highlights the crucial need for states to enhance community system building to support developmental promotion, early detection, and linkage to community-based services. We developed a greater understanding of the critical role community services play in supporting families as they work together to address children’s developmental concerns. The Office uses the knowledge and strategies employed in Help Me Grow affiliates to inform its work addressing the social determinants of health.

Future Goals
The National Center’s goal is to make Help Me Grow available to children in every state.

Contact: Paul Dworkin, M.D.
Executive Vice President for Community Child Health
Telephone: 860-837-6228
Email: pdworki@connecticutchildrens.org