Oral

Screening And Beyond: Issues in Identification and Family-Centered Care of Children with Special Health Care Needs. This session reflects a new breadth in the public health definition of special health care needs and a new depth in public health understanding of family-centered systems of care for children with special health care needs. Two of the papers presented in this session address screening. The first of these concerns a study which looked at enrollment in early intervention services and found sharp black-white disparities in screening-based enrollment. The second of the screening papers focuses on a survey of providers in one California county about their knowledge of and experience with widely used developmental screening tools. While important differences were found between child care center providers and providers offering licensed care at home in terms of capacity to use these tools, both groups indicated need for improved strategies to communicate screening results to parents. Two of the papers presented in the session look at issues related to family-centered care for children with special health care need. The first of these looks at a study concerning impact of care-giving on mental and physical health of parents raising very low birth weight infants. The second of these papers reports findings from a conference which reviewed family and provider survey results to help shape guidelines for communication of information about autism by providers to parents. All four papers reflect the importance and the challenges of family-professional partnership in care of children with special needs.

Session Objectives: 1.Describe the importance of and challenges in developmental and behavioral screening as tools for early identification of children with special health care needs; 2.Describe the impact of raising very low birth weight infants on parent health and well-being; 3.Identify guidelines and present recommendations related to provider communication with parents concerning autism.

CE Credits: Medical (CME), Health Education (CHES), Nursing (CNE), Public Health (CPH)