NICHQ Tapped to Lead New CoIIN on Early Childhood Health

NICHQ has again been chosen by the U.S. Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB) to lead a critical program for improving the health of the nation’s children and families.

NICHQ will be the coordinating center for the Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems Collaborative Improvement and Innovation Network (ECCS CoIIN). The five-year initiative will support 12 states and their communities in an effort to enhance early childhood systems and demonstrate improved outcomes in population-based children’s developmental health and family well-being indicators.

“We are thrilled to be leading this important work to address the challenges in improving young children’s developmental health in partnership with families and communities,” says Scott D. Berns, MD, MPH, FAAP, president and CEO of NICHQ. “By using NICHQ’s unique approach of combining and supporting collaboration, innovation and quality improvement, we will help states make system changes that will have a long term impact.” 

ECCS CoIIN will work with the ECCS state teams (known as Impact Grantees) and their chosen community project teams. The initiative will specifically strive for teams to show a 25 percent increase from baseline in age appropriate developmental skills of their communities’ 3-year-old children, and reduce disparities in these skills among these children. The ECCS CoIIN will use a collective impact framework to help teams implement best practices for supporting early childhood systems and sustaining their efforts at the state, county and community levels.

Lead partners on the project with NICHQ include Applied Engineering Management and ZERO TO THREE; both of whom bring substantial understanding of early childhood systems, approaches and measurement.