Building New Models of Care – Childhaven-Harborview Early Relational Program
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete“
~ R. Buckminster Fuller
Program Overview
The Childhaven-Harborview Early Relational Health Program seeks to transform traditional well child care by fostering strong, positive and nurturing relationships between parents and their children from birth onwards.
The program seeks to:
- Form trusted relationships with families over time
- Celebrate the developmental progress of each child
- Build upon families strengths and identify areas of needed support
- Facilitate meaningful connections to community-based services
To achieve this, required building a new model of care including working in partnership with a community-based early childhood program and creating new roles within the care team. Promoting First Relationships is the foundation of the program’s way of being with families and one another within our multidisciplinary cross sector team.
Community-Partnership
The program is a partnership between a community-based early childhood organization, Childhaven, and pediatric medical home, the University of Washington – Harborview Pediatric Clinic, serving linguistically and culturally diverse families in Seattle, Washington. The partnership brings together infant and early childhood mental health, early learning, and healthcare to break down silos and holistically support families.
Multi-disciplinary Team
The Early Childhood Developmental Navigator and Early Childhood Specialist are roles established within the care team to support child-parent relationships.
The Early Childhood Developmental Navigators are multicultural and multilingual and have expertise in early childhood. They are trained in Promoting First Relationships and use this strengths-based approach to build relationships over time with families and to support early child-caregiver relationships. The Early Childhood Developmental Navigators provide 1) family centered developmental promotion and caregiver support, 2) linguistically and culturally adapted screening and 3) early identification of developmental, behavioral or social stressor needs with ongoing intensive case management to facilitate meaningful connections with community-based services.
The Early Childhood Specialist focuses on supporting infant and early childhood mental well-being by helping caregivers better understand their child’s social and emotional development and challenging behaviors using the PFR approach. The Early Childhood Specialist builds capacity for the whole team to support Early Relational Health through multidisciplinary clinic-based trainings on infant mental health and healing centered care.
The Navigators and Early Childhood Specialist work collaboratively with a multidisciplinary team trained in PFR including lactation, social work and health care providers. Promoting First Relationships supports each member of the team to form trusted relationships with families over time. These relationships are the foundation of supporting the individual child-caregiver relationship within each clinic visit, building upon each caregiver’s strengths and reducing challenges and systemic barriers that get in the way of responsive caregiving.
To learn more about this program and the expansion to 2 other clinic sites watch this presentation: “Feeling Safe, Seen and Valued: the Impact of Relationships to Transform Well Child Care”