Investing in the first 1,000 days of a child’s life, a key formative period of brain development, can improve that child’s health and well-being over his or her entire lifetime.
This compelling fact spurred New York State to launch the First 1,000 Days on Medicaid initiative, a host of new cross-sector programs for children up to age three. New York’s Medicaid program, which spearheads the initiative, covers about 60 percent of the state’s very young children.
United Hospital Fund is a lead partner in this effort, which is bringing together a variety of child-serving sectors to collaborate with the State’s Medicaid program and promote child health and development in a variety of settings. UHF staff guided the development of the initiative’s proposals, soliciting ideas from 200 participating experts in child development, child welfare, pediatrics, mental health, and education—and developing a ranking and voting process to create the final Ten-Point Action Plan. It was adopted in 2018 and fully funded by the state legislature for implementation. UHF staff is continuing to support the State by advising on project implementation, re-convening stakeholders as necessary, and sharing lessons from its Children’s Health Initiative.
The First 1,000 Days Ten-Point Action Plan
Braided funding for early childhood mental health consultations—to unite several state agencies to co-fund training for early childhood teachers on how to support healthy development and identify behavioral problems;
Statewide home visiting—to expand home visiting programs that have demonstrated improved outcomes;
Preventive pediatric care clinical advisory group—to guide pediatricians on prevention, health promotion, and addressing poverty-related risks;
Expansion of “Centering Pregnancy”—to spread this successful model of group prenatal care for mothers in communities with the poorest birth outcomes;
Early literacy through local strategies—to improve early language development by expanding “Reach Out and Read” to pediatric primary care;
Requiring managed care plans to have a child-specific quality agenda—to develop quality improvement programs on common child-health quality measures;
Developmental inventory upon kindergarten entry—to create a standard measurement tool for use at that milestone;
Peer family navigators in multiple settings—to launch nine pilot projects, in homeless shelters, drug treatment programs, and other settings, to help hard-to-reach families connect to resources;
Parent/caregiver diagnosis as eligibility criterion for dyadic therapy—to allow children’s Medicaid enrollment to cover a proven parent/child therapy model based solely on a parent’s mood, anxiety, or substance abuse disorder diagnosis;
Data system development for cross-sector referrals—to develop a screening and referral data system that connects families to nearby health and social services.
Suzanne C. Brundage is a public health and health care strategist committed to creating the conditions in which children and families thrive. She is the director of UHF’s Children’s Health Initiative, which was established to strengthen health care’s focus on health disparities rooted in childhood.
Through a dual focus on service delivery and policy, Suzanne has worked on a range of issues including social determinants of health and education; primary care; Medicaid; and substance use disorders. She is a trusted collaborator, thought partner, and consensus builder for many organizations and individuals nationwide focused on strengthening systems for families. She was named the first Patricia S. Levinson Fellow at UHF for her work to improve health care for vulnerable populations.
Before working at UHF, Suzanne was the assistant director of the Global Health Policy Center at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. She has worked with a wide range of health nonprofits and safety net institutions, including Healing Through Remembering in Northern Ireland, Catholic AIDS Action in Namibia, Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Ohio, and Boston Medical Center. Suzanne is a member of the Bennington College Board of Trustees and the national Children’s Health Leadership Network. In 2018, she was named to City & State New York’s “40 Under 40” list and Crain’s New York’s list of 100 notable women in health care.
She holds a BA from Bennington College in conflict resolution and international affairs and an MS in health policy and management from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Lee, who joined UHF in 2016, provides research and policy analysis support to projects focusing on children and families.
Before UHF Lee was Medicaid Director of the District of Columbia; health policy advisor for the National Partnership for Women and Families; staff director of the National Association of State Medicaid Directors; staff director of the Committee on Human Resources, D.C. City Council; and a member of the personal staff of U.S. Senator Jacob K. Javits. She has served on committees of the National Quality Forum, the National Committee for Quality Assurance, and the American Academy of Pediatrics. She was the first public member of the Council of Medical Specialty Societies.
Lee holds a Bachelor of Arts from Wellesley College.
Chad Shearer is UHF’s senior vice president for policy and program, overseeing UHF’s work across the coverage and access, quality and efficiency, and clinical-community partnerships focus areas, as well as UHF conferences and grantmaking.
Before joining UHF in 2014, Chad was at the Princeton School of Public & International Affairs, where he was deputy director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s State Health Reform Assistance Network, a project coordinating technical assistance to 11 states on the implementation of the Affordable Care Act’s coverage expansion provisions. He was also a lecturer in public affairs at Princeton, teaching a capstone policy workshop. Chad has served as a senior program officer at the Center for Health Care Strategies, where he helped shape its Medicaid Leadership Institute, an intensive training program for selected state Medicaid directors. He was served as the legislative director for Congressman Pete Stark, Chairman of the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Chad holds both a law degree and a Master of Health Administration from the University of Iowa.