Project Description:
PROJECT GOAL:
Using a community engaged approach, the overarching goal of this project is to improve health equity and reduce educational and service disparities for indigenous Onondaga children with developmental and behavioral needs. The proposed 5-year project builds upon a newly formed partnership with Onondaga Nation and aims to increase Onondaga's capacity to navigate developmental and behavioral services, enhance the medical community's ability to provide culturally appropriate care to indigenous children and families, increase developmental promotion efforts, and improve developmental screening, evaluation, and intervention processes. PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
Objective 1: Partnership Building, The success of this project hinges on our ability to build a trusting and collaborative partnership with the Onondaga community and develop leaders to bridge the indigenous and medical communities. To that end, we will assemble a Stakeholder Advisory Committee (SAC) comprised of 10 stakeholders who represent the views of the community. We anticipate that members will include children with a neurodevelopmental disability, parents of children with neurodevelopmental disabilities, community leaders/elders, educators, and healthcare professionals. The SAC will meet quarterly to discuss and inform the activities of this project and develop a strategic plan. We anticipate that an indigenous leader will co-lead these meetings. Second, we will host bi-annual listening sessions (i.e., focus groups) to better understand the developmental, behavioral, and educational priorities of the Haudenosaunee community.
Objective 2: Workforce Training and Technical Assistance - This includes Staff Training delivered to ONS teaching teams (i.e., faculty and teaching assistants) and building staff (i.e., security, indigenous liaisons, and cafeteria staff).
Objective 3: Developmental Promotion: To improve health equity within this indigenous population, we will implement multiple ongoing opportunities for developmental promotion. This includes Resource Dissemination to share evidence-based information on topics important to Onondaga Nation families and community members. We will disseminate informational handouts on topics that help families promote learning and development from early childhood, encourage positive parenting practices, help children acquire behavioral self-control, enhance development and well-being of children and families, identify problems, and ask for support. Additionally, we will conduct Community Education Initiatives, including the delivery of caregiver/family training activities focusing on topics of importance to Onondaga Nation families.
Objective 4: Improving Access to Developmental Screening, Evaluation, and Intervention
To directly address the service disparities for Onondaga children with suspected developmental needs, we will aim to Improve Access to Developmental Screening. Specifically, in accordance with American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) guidance, we will assist indigenous families in accessing annual developmental screenings for children ages 0-5 years old. We aim to strengthen the relationship with a community agency, "Help Me Grow Onondaga," which offers free developmental screening using the Ages & Stages Questionnaire, Third Edition (ASQ-3) for all of Onondaga county. Objective 5: Evaluation and Sustainability: A critical component of this project is to plan for sustainable impact from its inception We anticipate doing so through a series of activities aimed to continue/expand this initiative.
Keyword(s):
Developmental Disabilities, Early Childhood – Developmental Health (including developmental screening), Early Childhood – General, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, Health Equity
Unserved or Under-served Populations:
Geographic Areas, Reservation
