Building Bright Futures (BBF) has just released a new data brief, Examining Perspectives of Children’s Integrated Services (CIS) from Families Served by CIS Early Intervention. CIS is a prevention-focused program that provides support for parents or caregivers to understand and advocate for the needs of their children, provides a point person to support care coordination, and coordinates access to high-quality child development, mental health, and prevention services.
To contribute to Vermont’s understanding and prioritization of the experience of families receiving these services, BBF supported the Child Development Division’s CIS State Team in an analysis of qualitative data to examine the perceptions and experiences of families who have received early intervention services as part of CIS. This data, from a survey completed from November 2020 through June 2021, represents the views of 371 parents and caregivers across the state.
The report shows that Vermont needs to invest in its Children’s Integrated Services workforce, increase funding for coordinating care beyond case management, and complete a more thorough evaluation of CIS and how it can best serve young children and their families.
Three themes emerged from the survey responses:
- Impact of CIS on children and families
- Critical components of CIS
- Challenges and barriers
The BBF data brief includes two program, policy, and data considerations related to important CIS service components and their impact on families:
- Invest in the CIS workforce – Vermont should invest in and prioritize the CIS workforce as individuals working with young and vulnerable children and families.
- Value coordination – Vermont should fund the critical elements of coordination beyond case management to best serve the whole child and family.
The BBF data brief includes two program, policy, and data considerations to address data limitations and gain a fuller picture of CIS:
- Conduct a full evaluation of CIS – A full evaluation of the CIS program is needed to determine challenges to service provision and which factors are most critical in delivering these services successfully.
- Evolve the CIS data system and infrastructure – A CIS data system is needed, including the personnel capacity and expertise to execute high-quality data collection, management, reporting, and utilization.
Note: This brief is not a full evaluation of CIS. The findings of this brief do not necessarily indicate the views of the State of Vermont.
