Hot Topics: New and Emerging Initiatives

Shkeda Johnson: Thank you. Good morning. I’d like to just take a few minutes to discuss with you a remarkable grantee who has made some tremendous accomplishments within their first year of funding from the Maternal and Child Health Bureau. In 2002, the Maternal and Child Health Bureau funded the Michigan Public Health Institute to develop the National Child Death Review Resource Center under the direction of Teri Covington. The purpose of the center was to promote and support CDR activities within the state and to refine CDR methodology, and to integrate the CDR process with other MCH review processes addressing mortality and morbidity. Prior to the institution of the National Resource Center, there was no national resource center from which all states could derive support. There was no written materials, protocols, or other tools for states to use when developing CDR teams, and there was no technical assistance or training offered to the states. Since being funded by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau the MCH National Child Death Review Resource Center has developed one of the first national CDR program manuals.

This manual is still in draft format for review purposes, but this manual offers states and localities information on how to develop CDR teams within their communities, and how to sustain and support the teams that are currently there. Another one of our accomplishments within the first year was that the Michigan Public Health Institute--the center, CDR center developed the first national web based reporting tool and system for states to use when reporting child death reviews. And recently we convened the first national meeting of state CDR Coordinators in Chicago, Illinois. At the Child Death Review State Coordinators Meeting, we addressed a variety of issues and concerns pertinent to the child death review process. At this meeting we received wide participation from 46 states within the U.S. and also the District of Columbia. Other agencies attended this event as well, including the U.S. Department of Justice, the Children’s Safety Network, and the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. In conclusion, the National Center has gotten off to a great start in their first year of funding. They’re currently in the second year of funding, and our Director, Teri Covington, is spending a great deal of time traveling to states to help provide them with information, training, technical assistance, on how to develop CDR within their states if they currently don’t have a CDR team. She’s also working with states on how to improve their CDR process and how to sustain and continue the support within the states and communities with CDR. We’re very proud of the work that our center has put forth over the last year and we encourage you to connect with your Child Death Review teams in your state and your community if you have not done so, so that we can continue to work together to enhance our public health system and help keep kids alive.

Peter van Dyck: How do people contact you? From the website *(inaudible)?

*Shkeda Johnson: There should be some information out on the table. I believe our grantee, Teri Covington--some of you may have already met--she left a packet--and I left it at the table--on how to contact the center. If you don’t have an opportunity to stop by the table, you may log on to www.keepingkidsalive.org and that should lead you to the Michigan Public Health Institute website, and on that website that can link you to different states and what your state is doing around the child death review process. Thank you.