NICHQ Employee Spotlight: Karen Chustz

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…

NICHQ Prepares for Upcoming Spring Maternal Child Health Conference

  The National Institute for Children’s Health Quality (NICHQ) is preparing for an exciting spring 2023 conference season, where staff will give poster presentations and facilitate workshops at a variety of national maternal and child health conferences. Several project teams will represent NICHQ at the 2023 Association of Maternal Child Health Programs (AMCHP) Annual Conference, which…

Doula Support Improves Maternal and Child Health Outcomes, Patient and Family Engagement

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…

Supporting Indigenous Families for Improved Health Outcomes

NOTES ON LANGUAGE: A variety of language is used to describe the people who first inhabited the North American continent before colonizers arrived in the 15th century, continuing through the annexation of Hawai’i in 1898. What vocabulary we use depends on whether we are quoting someone else’s language, talking about legal matters, statistics, or data…

Making Fathers Visible in Maternal and Child Health

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…

Indianapolis Gives Moms and Babies in Prison a Healthy Start

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…

Seven Strategies for Conducting Services Virtually

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…

In the Face of COVID-19, Baltimore Healthy Start Builds Resiliency

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 disproportionately affected vulnerable low-income communities where families already face significant threats to their health and well-being, including housing and food insecurity and less access to…