At Best Starts, we want babies to grow up healthy and establish a strong foundation for lifelong health and well-being. Our Child Care Health Consultation (CCHC) strategy promotes the health, safety, and development of children and caregivers in child care settings across King County.
Our CCHC system in King County includes child care health consultants who provide a range of culturally and linguistically responsive expertise and experience in areas such as mental/behavioral health, nutrition, and developmental screening. In addition to being community-based and culturally and linguistically responsive, consultants have diverse backgrounds in disciplines such as community health work, nursing, resource navigation, and social work. Consultants provide CCHC services to licensed and non-licensed child care providers and Family, Friend, and Neighbor (FFN) caregivers who are part of the child care system in King County.
In 2023, Cardea conducted a landscape review of state and local CCHC systems, interviewed CCHC system leaders across the U.S., and engaged a Strategic Advisory Group (Advisory Group) representing public/government and community-based organizations that provide CCHC and/or early childhood services in King County and Washington State. Cardea worked in partnership with the Advisory Group to develop a strategic vision that includes actionable recommendations and foundational investments needed to build the CCHC system in King County. The Advisory Group also shared system-wide inclusive and supportive strategies to use alongside the recommendations to guide a process that centers community-strength and the voices of child care providers, FFN caregivers, and other community partners.
We are very excited to share out the new report: Strategic Vision for the Child Care Health Consultation System in King County.
CCHC System Strategic Vision, Goal, and Components
The CCHC System Strategic vision, goal, and components reflects learning and guidance from the Strategic Advisory Group, Best Starts, and CCHC systems experts across the country.
The report highlights system-wide inclusive and supportive strategies to guide the implementation of four CCHC system components. Each system component has goals, objectives, and strategies that work towards meeting the system vision and system goal. Download the report to read in-depth on each CCHC system component.
System-Wide Inclusive and Supportive Strategies
- Center the knowledge and experience of providers (licensed and non-licensed), families, and community, and ensure the system is embedded in community
- Maintain a flexible system in which consultants can pivot/adjust consultation services to be responsive and relational to provider needs
- Center self-care and community-care for providers, consultants, and others who work in the system
- Provide inclusive language access in consultation, resources, and system components
- Partner and collaborate across Best Starts prenatal to five strategies and the early childhood community
System Components
- Support relationship-building between all child care health consultants and child care providers: Focuses on building and strengthening relationships between all consultants and providers to ensure that providers understand the role and scope of consultants and how to access consultation that supports providing culturally and linguistically responsive, inclusive care to children and their families.
- Support child care health consultants’ connection and relationships: Focuses on building and strengthening relationships between consultants to increase understanding of different program models, services, and other resources for providers and the children and families they serve.
- Strengthen the child care health consultant workforce: Focuses on developing and enhancing the consultant workforce through culturally and linguistically responsive training, professional development, and reflective practice to develop the capacity of consultants to support providers in promoting the health and well-being of the children and families they serve.
- Co-design and implement supportive systems for monitoring and evaluation: Focuses on optimizing data collection, monitoring, and evaluation to understand the reach of consultants, celebrate successes, and co-create opportunities for sharing learnings and continuous improvement.
Questions?
If you have any questions about this report, please reach out to Lucy Dong, Child Care Health Consultation Program Manager, at ludong@kingcounty.gov.
