Profiles in Integrated Family Care

Authors: Suzanne C. Brundage, Chad Shearer, Sarah Scaffidi, MSc, Lee Partridge 

The related press release can be found here

Integrated Family Care aims to address the physical, behavioral, and social needs of families with young children who face significant adversity caused by such social determinants of health as structural racism, poverty, food scarcity, exposure to violence, and inadequate housing—all of which can cause poor health outcomes throughout a child’s life. Providers that adopt the Integrated Family Care model work to coordinate medical care, behavioral health care, and social services, with the goal of promoting long-term family and child well-being.

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need for new care models, testing primary care and community-based providers in unprecedented ways. Not only did the pandemic exacerbate family poverty—with the greatest impact on families of color—it has been financially ruinous for some child and family-serving community organizations and traumatic to frontline health care providers.  

This report features five providers that work in very different settings, but all are actively implementing elements of the Integrated Family Care rubric. It is published with the support of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention under a cooperative agreement with ChangeLab Solutions.