Celebrate NICHQ’s 25th Anniversary! Click here to learn more about our work in MCH improvement
Isabel Zuckoff, MPH, a project director for NICHQ’s National Network of Perinatal Quality Collaboratives (NNPQC) and Maternal Health Action & Resource Center (MHARC), shares her professional inspiration and goals.
Full name and title: Karen Chustz, MSW Job Title: Senior Project Director (Supporting Healthy Start Performance Project) Time with NICHQ: 1.5 months (Joined NICHQ October 2024) How has your background led you to join a children’s health organization? My journey to join NICHQ has been influenced not only by my professional training and experience as a macro-focused…
Teams at the National Institute for Children’s Health Quality are preparing for an exciting fall 2024 conference season, where staff will give oral presentations and facilitate workshops and symposiums at a variety of national maternal and child health conferences.
In honor of World Doula Week, celebrated annually March 22-28, The National Institute for Children’s Health Quality (NICHQ) held a conversation with LaToshia Rouse, CD/PCD(DONA), owner of Birth Sisters Doula Services. Rouse currently serves as the Patient and Family Engagement Co-Chair of the National Network for Perinatal Quality Collaboratives Executive Committee and joined NICHQ’s Board…
Involved fathers give children a better chance of leading happy and fulfilling lives. From cognitive and social emotional development to education and employment accomplishments, children with involved fathers achieve better outcomes on nearly every measure of child well-being. Father involvement is also linked with improved mental health and well-being for moms. Yet despite fathers’ positive impact…
For the past 18 years, Mary Bullock, LCSW, MBA, has provided counseling and support to pregnant women and young mothers in the Indiana Women’s Prison (IWP). A social worker for Indianapolis Healthy Start, Bullock says that her relationships with these women have been a highlight of her 40-year career. “If I won the lottery, I…
Across the country, health and social service providers have had to find new ways to support children and families in the face of COVID-19. Home visiting services, pediatric well-child visits, prenatal care, and mental health appointments have largely had to transition from in-person appointments to visits virtually—either via phone or video. At the same time, COVID-19…
The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted daily life across the country, with schools and childcare closed, routine medical care delayed, public transportation limited, and millions of jobs lost. These disruptions have affected communities where families already face significant threats to their health and well-being. In response, Baltimore Healthy Start, Inc., a federally funded program focused on…
For years, experts have called for a comprehensive system that links young children and families to needed health and social services at the community, state, and federal level. The coronavirus pandemic has revealed that the need for that system is more urgent than ever. Children’s health and development is affected by a long list of…
Right from the beginning, fathers play a big role in their children’s health and development. Studies show that father involvement during the perinatal period and the first year of life leads to children who are more ready for school, have an advanced vocabulary and enhanced social skills, and are better able to regulate their emotions….