Achieving Goals
We’re all about improving health outcomes for Mississippi’s most precious asset—its children.
We are working with families, healthcare providers and early childhood professionals to foster positive caregiver and child interactions, enhance attention to developmental milestones and strengthen children’s brain architecture.
Who are we?
Funded by the Health Resources Services Administration (HRSA), we’re a project of the University of Mississippi Medical Center’s (UMMC) Children’s of Mississippi and Mississippi State University’s Social Science Research Center (SSRC).
- To increase
- the proportion of children and families experiencing all elements of the quality developmental promotion system,
- the capacity and proportion of the state’s early childhood providers demonstrating improved practices around developmental health promotion,
- the proportion of families in the state engaged in daily talking/reading/singing to their birth to 3-year-old children, and
- the percentage of children with developmental risk or delay who receive the recommended follow-up interventions/treatment.
- To study and develop a model of best practices, interventions, and policies in early childhood systems development to serve as a model for high needs states
We achieve these goals by:
- Gaining full knowledge of the environment by conducting and analyzing surveys of parents and healthcare providers; Developing policy briefs and reports based on research outcomes
- Providing opportunities for back-and-forth “serve and return” interactions between adults and children by instituting Reach out and Read and VROOM across the state
- Implementing Health Care Practice Transformation initiatives in pediatric medical homes
- Establishing a state advisory committee
- Enhancing the early childhood developmental/behavioral health system workforce through a Mississippi Thrive! UMMC fellowship program and Mt. Sinai training for pediatric residents at UMMC
- Offering screenings and clinical assessment through the Mississippi Thrive! fellowship program
- Training health care providers on early childhood developmental/behavioral health through a Project ECHO telehealth model
- Embedding early childhood developmental and behavioral health education modules into state agency personnel training programs
- Promoting early care provider and caregiver outreach regarding the importance of early childhood developmental health; Improving awareness about screenings and child development using a public service health messaging campaign
- Developing interactive resource maps for parents, educators, and providers to use on the MS Thrive!
Want to learn more?
See the results of our survey brief and read our various publications.
This project is supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of an award totaling $17.4 million with 0 percent financed with non-governmental sources. The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by HRSA, HHS, or the U.S. Government. For more information, please visit HRSA.gov today.
