The Northern Windsor and Orange County BBF Council has been focusing on its priority “Professionals have knowledge and resources regarding children’s social and emotional health” and “Professionals have access to and participate in the Developmental Screening Registry”. At the April meeting the council watched the film Broken Places and discussed locations or groups that may be interested in viewing the film. The film explores why some children who experience Adverse Childhood Experiences are able to thrive (dandelions), while others struggle to overcome them (orchids) by following different individuals over many years and including expert narrative as well. We discussed the difficulty spreading the word beyond those that are already aware of ACEs. At our May council meeting we were able to learn from the different Mental Health Designated Agencies in our region, Clara Martin Center and Health Care and Rehabilitation Services of Vermont about the services they offered, the trends they are experiencing and brainstorm ways in which we can help address the need in our region.
The region has also begun to learn more about the Universal Developmental Screening Registry. We realized that although we have a list of people who are trained in using the registry we do not have a clear picture of who is currently doing developmental screenings, what tools they are using to do these screenings and if there is interest in entering screenings into the Universal Developmental Screening Registry. As the initial step we sent out a quick survey to all child care providers and many community partners to begin to understand the landscape of developmental screenings in Northern Windsor and Orange Counties.
