Maternal and child health services - the department of health's mission is to work with others to protect and improve the health of all people in washington state

Our vision is equity and optimal health for all. WW help prevent illness and injury, promote healthy places to live and work, provide information to help people make healthy choices, and ensure our state is prepared for emergencies. The state's title?v maternal and child health block grant (mchbg) program is part of the office of family and community health improvement in the prevention and community health division of the department of health (DOH).? The mchbg provides essential financial and technical support to implement policies and programs that improve the well-being of parents, infants, children, and youth, including children and youth with special health care needs, and their families. Mchbg also adds to state and local public health's abilities to provide foundational public health services. Our work focuses on issues of justice and addressing the needs of populations exhibiting the highest needs. We center health equity by supporting community-driven solutions and tailoring system improvements tied to disparities. We identify service gaps, such as perinatal and genetic services in rural areas, and we develop agreements with providers to better serve those regions.? Our mchbg work relates to key state priorities. Our needs assessment (2019) helped identify priority needs for maternal and child health services and inform objectives and strategies for our work over a five-year period.? We identified four core principles as the basis of our work:? All people deserve the opportunity to thrive and achieve their highest level of health and well-being. Improving systems that serve families and children to be more equitable is a core responsibility of public health practitioners. We commit to being anti-racist in our programs and policies.? We value both evidence-based and community-developed promising practices. We work in ways that embrace cultural humility and appropriateness.? We are working to ensure trauma-informed approaches are built into all our programs and services.?? The key priority needs we identified in the assessment and focused our work on are:? Increase capacity of the local public health workforce to strategically identify, plan for, and address the needs of women and children throughout the state.? Enhance and maintain health systems to increase timely access to preventive care, early screening, referral, and treatment to improve people's health across the life course.? Identify and reduce barriers to quality health care.? Improve the safety, health, and supportiveness of communities.? Promote mental wellness and resilience through increased access to behavioral health and other support services.? Optimize the health and well-being of adolescent girls and adult women, using holistic approaches that empower self-advocacy and engagement with health systems.? Improve infant and perinatal health outcomes and reduce inequities that result in infant morbidity and mortality.? Optimize the health and well-being of children and youth, using holistic approaches.? Identify and reduce barriers to needed services and supports for children and youth with special health care needs and their families.? Identify and respond to emerging priority needs associated with public health emergencies and their effects on the maternal and child populations.? These state priority needs have guided our choices of national performance measures:?? Well-woman visits? Breastfeeding? Developmental screening? Adolescent well visits? Medical home? Adequate insurance? Our work helps US fulfill the governor's vision: "everyone in washington has full access to opportunities, power, and resources they need to flourish and achieve their full potential and there is equity and justice for all, for the next seven generations and beyond."