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Recommendations
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Cuyahoga County Early Childhood Initiative: Early Childhood Initiative Evaluation and Research Interim Report (11/01/01)
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1. Continue the use of effective outreach efforts in enrolling eligible children into Healthy Start/Medicaid;
2. Expand and enhance prenatal services, given the persistent trend of low birth weight babies in Cuyahoga County;
3. Increase public awareness of the ECI campaign and its components to encourage families to take advantage of its services and to engender broader public support of the Initiative;
4. Assess the degree to which the home visitation programs (Welcome Home and Early Start) are reaching those children and families most at risk;
5. Stress the area of basic care in quality enhancement visits to newly certified family child
care homes;
6. Evaluate the different service delivery models being used to address child care for children with special needs to help tailor the ECI training to effectively meet the needs of children on whose behalf the training is provided;
7. Continue to build management information systems to support high-quality service delivery and ongoing evaluation activities.
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Cuyahoga County Early Childhood Initiative: The Early Start Program- An Assessment of Program Quality (10/01/04)
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- Need to recognize that there is a great variation in resources, supports, flexibility, and ability to implement program standards among Early Start agencies.
- Need for greater clarity and consistency among Early Start providers in documenting what
happens in home visits and the services provided to families.
- Use of peer review and collaboration strategies among Early Start agencies to help enhance quality in documentation and record-keeping.
- Need to consolidate essential data elements to streamline data collection and administrative
compliance procedures.
- Need for Early Start to ensure consistent, quality supervision and training because of formal preparation, in-service training, and supervision is not consistent among agencies.
- May need to develop a fine-tuned program model and a reconsider program costs for a more consistent, quality program.
- Need improved linkages to community resources, better collaboration among county service systems, and the development of new public/private partnerships.
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Cuyahoga County Early Childhood Initiative: Welcome Home and Early Start (10/01/04)
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- More directed assistance to Early Start agencies in the area of participant recruitment, staff development, and supervision.
- Greater emphasis on strengthening social networks in structuring both Welcome Home and Early Start services.
- Improved linkages among the ECI system, OWF and child protective services.
- Increased thought to the role personal experiences and cultural backgrounds play in defining the participant-worker relationship.
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Cuyahoga County Early Childhood Initiative: Phase II Final Report Executive Summary (05/01/05)
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- Develop supplemental approaches to home-based strategies, involving individualized
services tailored to caregiver characteristics, to engage (1) more at-risk families, and (2) family child care providers.
- Develop a system to identify and intervene with families with a young child who lacks a
consistent source of medical care (i.e., a medical home)
- Promote quality improvement strategies for family child care and home visiting that
include attracting qualified and motivated individuals to deliver services
- Continue supports and services for children with special needs
- Continue efforts to expand newborn home visiting beyond first time and teen parents
- Advocate for high quality preschool programs and universal pre-kindergarten programs.
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