A Pittsburgh-based maternal and child health care collaborative will undertake a unique and innovative initiative to help families face the challenges of parental depression and early childhood developmental delays.

Under U.S. federal law, all states must implement a system of early intervention services for infants and toddlers, birth to age three, who have developmental concerns, and their families. Many states do not include risk factors in their eligibility criteria.

The Helping Families Raise Healthy Children initiative is supported by a three-year, $500,000 matching grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Local Funding Partnerships program. The grant was awarded to Community Care, the managed behavioral health care organization in Allegheny County. Local funders of the initiative currently include The Highmark Foundation (nominating funder), UPMC Health Plan, The Pittsburgh Foundation, The Fine Foundation, FISA Foundation, and Jewish Healthcare Foundation.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 28th, 2009 at 3:29 pm and is filed under Children and Youth, Community Foundations, Health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.