If your child, or the child of someone you love, seems to be missing developmental milestones, sometimes the child just needs a little more time. But sometimes, the child may have developmental delays that are best addressed through active intervention. Help Me Grow, now in 25 states in the U.S., helps families connect with local resources in the most effective way possible.
Help Me Grow focuses on at-risk children and links these children and their families to programs and services that already exist. “To get the best outcomes for children and the best outcomes for society, it is no more complicated than that,” according to Paul Dworkin, M.D., professor and chair, Dept. of Pediatrics, University of Connecticut School of Medicine.
Dworkin warns, “If we don’t identify these problems early and they escalate into full-blown, difficult-to-manage diagnoses, we know then that the interventions are far less effective and far more expensive.”
Help Me Grow helps pediatricians function more effectively by connecting families with local resources. The program connects community-based services with families so that they learn the best resources for their child. A centralized call center provides families with needed information and referral to connect them with local child development programs that will be most helpful for their child. The program includes data collection for a process of continuous improvement in linking families with programs and services.
Help Me Grow gives information for each state which currently affiliates with the program. This is one of many, many programs to help children and adults with various disabilities available in the U.S. and Canada. To search an interactive database of public and private resources, see 211.ca in Canada or 211.org in the United States.
Comments
Mark, Do you know if there is any equivalent program in Canada? I can't say for Québec because the provincial government has been cutting services beyond the fat, and many parents and teachers complain that they are overwhelmed because they have too many kids with learning disabilities in their classes and not enough help to manage them.
Michele, I don't know of equivalent programs in Canada. That's why I listed 211.ca as a resource.
If you are Canadian and reading this, do you have an answer to Michele's question?
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