Partnering with Parents and Communities

Understanding the communities in which families live and the concerns of parents can help clinicians identify and prioritize barriers to high-quality care pediatric care. These issues can range from operational concerns like wait times for appointments, community issues like feeling it’s unsafe to walk to the primary care practice, or interpersonal issues like trust in health care providers.

Partnering with parents and community members to understand and address these issues is consistent with core principles of patient and family-centered care and can help practices improve; it also requires consistent, deliberate outreach to communities and families.

Strategies for Partnering with Patients and Community Stakeholders

• Seek to understand parent perspectives through direct patient feedback via polls, interviews, or focus groups, paying attention to issues like building trust, and developing cultural humility.
• Introduce parent-facing roles, like parent advocates and navigators, among practice staff. 
• Partner with family support organizations like Family Voices, Parent to Parent of New York State, and Families on the Move of New York City.
• Train medical students and residents on social determinants of health and rotate them through community organizations as part of their medical residency training. 
• Use a community pediatrics approach to become familiar with community-wide social, economic, and health indicators that affect patients. Techniques like windshield surveys can help practice teams gain general knowledge of the surrounding community context.
• Assess the practice’s capacity to engage in community-wide interventions or community-based projects; consider what resources are required, what institutional or philanthropic sponsorship is available, and what training is needed. Examples of such large-scale partnerships include the Claremont Health Village Initiative in the Bronx and the partnerships between the University of Rochester Medical Center’s Golisano Children’s Hospital and Rochester community-based organizations.
• Establish family councils or committees with parents as advisors to inform clinicians and staff on aspects of operating the practice, from practical concerns like availability and office hours to interpersonal factors like staff cultural humility.

Going Further

Clinicians who want to go further and become advocates for health equity in their communities can seek training on pediatric advocacy and opportunities to connect with other advocacy-minded peers. Pediatric practices may also consider accessing pediatric advocacy curricula to help frame learning opportunities for medical trainees and practice staff.

Resources