Help Me Grow
In 2010, IA AAP was awarded a multi-year grant to implement the Help Me Grow program in Iowa. Help Me Grow Iowa was a national replication project with a focus on creating a statewide coordinated intake system to serve families with children ages 0-8. HMG Iowa included collaboration between children’s health services, early care and education, and family support services. It linked families with needed programs and services, and established a referral line for physicians, providers and families.
About Help Me Grow
Children with developmental delays and disabilities too often elude early detection. Programs exist to help these children, but we need to remove barriers that keep families from connecting with the available resources. Help Me Grow addresses the necessary system changes to successfully identify children at risk and to link them to the services they need.
Comprehensive Help Me Grow System
The four core components of a comprehensive Help Me Grow system are:
- Child health care provider outreach to support early detection and intervention.
- Community outreach to promote the use of Help Me Grow and provide networking opportunities among families and service providers.
- Coordinated intake for connecting children and their families to services and care coordination.
- Data collection to understand all aspects of the Help Me Grow system, including identification of gaps and barriers.
Help Me Grow Iowa has a specific focus on coordinated intake as this has been identified as a need for families and providers across the state. A coordinated intake system will provide one point of contact for families to be connected with the appropriate services for their situation.
The following links and documents provide additional information about Help Me Grow:
Help Me Grow Social Media Campaign
During March 2013, Iowa AAP conducted a month-long Help Me Grow social media campaign. The mission of this initiative was to highlight and promote screening and surveillance resources for Iowa parents and pediatricians with the intention of connecting Iowa families to appropriate local, state, and national resources. The HMG social media campaign used Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to deliver daily resources and links to associated websites. The campaign covered a variety of topics related to early childhood development. There were two posts per day: one post in the morning aimed at parents and community members, and one post in the evening aimed at pediatricians and healthcare providers.
- Archived list of resources targeting parents/caregivers
- Archived list of resources targeting pediatricians
- PowerPoint overview of the Help Me Grow Social Media Campaign
Please contact us if you have questions or would like additional information.
