Pediatric Care Coordination:
Community of Practice
Tuesday, April 13, 2021
Greetings,
Spring is a time of change, when daylight extends into the evening and buds appear on trees. This spring, we lost someone dear to the Community of Practice. Kathleen Conboy, a member of MDH’s Health Care Homes team, died on March 17th. She was instrumental in imagining this Community of Practice into existence and served on the project’s Advisory Group. She will be greatly missed. Colleagues and friends of Kathleen are invited to offer a tribute or story for the Conboy family on this virtual Kudoboard.
As always, thank you for being part of strengthening this Community of Practice. If you know of other people who may be interested in being part of this community, please invite them to become a free member. We continue to reflect on how we can better support the Community of Practice and invite you to provide feedback on our offerings in an upcoming survey. Look for this survey in your inbox soon!
Wendy Berghorst and the ACET team
PLEASE REGISTER: Upcoming Events
Understanding Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD): What Care Coordinators Need to Know
Roxanne King - Program Manager for Caregiver Services (she/her)
Julia Conkel-Ziebell, Ph.D., LP - Clinical Psychologist (she/her)
Proof Alliance
Tuesday April 20, 2021 | Noon to 1:00 pm CT
Webinar Objectives:
Understand the process of FASD diagnosis & subsequent support
Gain insight on how to effectively support children with FASD
Learn about resources for youth with FASD and their caregivers
Regional Meetings: It’s a Wrap
A big thank you to everyone who attended our regional meetings in February and March. In small groups, we discussed what our organizations do well when it comes to managing care for kids and youth with special needs, what challenges we face, and how local collaborations could help overcome these challenges. To kickstart the conversations, we heard from these “local inspirations” about their care coordination practices:
Lynn Haglin, Northland Foundation
Richael Weinand, CentraCare
Nicole Krenik, Mankato Clinic
Teresa Buck, Olmsted County Public Health
Angela Booher, Children's Health Network
In case you missed the meetings, you can revisit the agendas, which also include links to key takeaways from the meetings.
PCC CoP Member Highlight
Rae Blaylark on Transformation and Transitions
Rae Blaylark: President, CEO (Sickle Cell Foundation of Minnesota) and Sickle Cell Community Liaison (Children’s Minnesota)
In 2015, Rae Blaylark (President, CEO of Sickle Cell Foundation) started the Sickle Cell Foundation of Minnesota. Just as she was beginning this new adventure, she was approached by Children’s Minnesota for a unique and profound opportunity that was too difficult to pass up. Her new role, working with Dr. Steve Nelson, helped create opportunities and open up equity pathways at Children’s that were not previously there. As it seems with all things Rae does, she dug into both of her new roles with passion, intelligence, and vision; she transformed the sickle cell program at Children’s and began cultivating the foundation that she sheltered under her wing.
Rae knew that her work at Children’s would some day come to an end. With the pandemic, racial unrest in Minneapolis and beyond, and a renewed focus and dependency on community led organizations, she felt that now is a good time to focus solely on the foundation. For 2021, Rae has high aspirations for the Sickle Cell Foundation of Minnesota. She plans to dig into strategic planning, extend partnerships with MDH’s newborn screening program as well as the CDC and MDH surveillance project, streamline services, ensure sustainability, and continue to provide expert assistance to patients, families, care coordinators, institutions, and providers.
When asked what Rae would like care coordinators to know about sickle cell disease, she spoke about the common divide between medical and social complexities and how they impact the social determinants of health. To truly serve patients, there can be no divide. When working with the sickle cell population, medical issues cannot be treated without also working toward addressing healthcare bias and healing the trauma and inequities seen throughout the healthcare system. Medical issues can’t be siloed. Caregivers have to address what the patients’, their families, and the surrounding community are facing to start the process of whole-person healing.
As a caregiver to her own son with sickle cell, Rae has a unique perspective to share. She has seen the healthcare system, with all of its flaws and beauty, from both sides of the spectrum. With her help, the help of others before her, and hopefully many to come, she has guided the healthcare system in Minnesota to a more equitable place. There is much more work to be done but we are thankful for the progress Rae has made at Children’s and are excited to see the success coming from the Sickle Cell Foundation of Minnesota.
COVID Community Coordinators
MDH is supporting over two dozen COVID Community Coordinators to provide culturally-specific COVID-19 resources to communities across Minnesota. Examples include a variety of resources from Disability Hub MN, podcasts from Hmong American Partnership, and COVID-19 comics from JustUs Health that serves LGBTQ+ communities. Find a list of all COVID Coordinators on MDH’s website.
JOIN THIS COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE
If this newsletter has been forwarded to you and you’re not already a member of this community, please consider signing up for the Pediatric Care Coordination: Community of Practice by clicking the button below (you will also be added to the newsletter list).
“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
-James Baldwin
The Pediatric Care Coordination: Community of Practice is a program coordinated by ACET Inc. under a grant funded by the Minnesota Department of Health. Opinions expressed herein do not necessarily represent the Minnesota Department of Health’s position or policy.
Feel free to share this newsletter with anyone who can benefit from the content provided within.
For more information, please contact info@acetinc.com.
ACET, Inc., Minneapolis, MN