Building knowledge and sharing resources by and for local early childhood systems builders.
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Closing the Loop: Tracking Referrals in Utah County |
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Every early childhood community strives for a well-connected, seamless system that provides families the services they need. But oftentimes, referrals end up incomplete and organizations lack the ability to track each outcome. United Way of Utah County is working to eliminate those barriers using a closed loop referral system, a platform that allows a network of cross-sector, community-based organizations to track every referral, interaction, and outcome.
In 2016, United Way of Utah County led the formation of a cross-sector network of 20 early childhood community-based organizations, to improve families’ connections to services in the South Franklin neighborhood of Provo, Utah. After ongoing discussions of the need for improved referrals across different agencies, the network was determined to find an effective way to provide a closed loop referral system. Since nothing was available in Utah at the time, United Way of Utah County worked with Kansas University to implement the Integrated Referral and Intake System (IRIS).
Then, in 2020, their county shifted to enter a statewide pilot run by their predominant health provider, Unite Us, to sustain a closed loop referral between clinics and their surrounding community services. “This has helped us to develop stronger ties to medical partners and share information on the referrals, time frames, and outcomes to increase the quality of multi-sector collaboration,” shared Barbara Leavitt, Vice President of Community Impact at United Way of Utah County. “Out of the many discussions based on the data provided, we have had richer deep dives into the reasons for families not receiving services,”
As of November 2022, their referral system included 112 Provo County organizations with 135 programs engaged as community partners, providing services such as home visiting, parenting classes, pregnancy services, case management, health screenings, early childhood services, and concrete supports.
Partners in the network are connected through a shared technology platform run by Unite Us, allowing them to send and receive electronic referrals to address the community’s social needs. United Way of Utah County meets with Unite Us monthly to receive a data report to define gaps and barriers in the community. “This data helped us to understand what gaps and barriers are occurring and how we can work more effectively in councils to improve the outcome of families and children,” explained Leavitt. “We have used this data to help us understand where we need services and resources. Our United Way is focused on natural supports as well as system resources and this has enabled us to rethink how the two can work together.”
From January through November of 2022, 948 referrals were recorded in the system for 638 Utah County families. Through the system, they’re able to track the outcomes of all those services and follow up with incomplete referrals. With that data, they can identify service gaps and at-risk populations to better service families.
One of the partners from Utah County Partners for Families and Children shared a story that demonstrates the impact of their system:
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“I went on a home visit to a first-time mom who was new to the area. She had just
received a full-time job offer, so she told me she needed to find childcare for her baby.
She was pretty nervous and overwhelmed. I told her about Care About Childcare, and
she was relieved to know there was a resource to help her. I referred her through our
closed-loop system to their agency. I went on another visit to her home about two
weeks later. The first thing she said to me was, ‘The people from Care About Childcare
helped me to find a daycare for my son!’ She told me about the daycare they had helped
her find and how excited she was. I was grateful that we had a system that enabled me
to create a connection between this mom and the resource she needed.”
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CSSP engaged in a 12-month planning and implementation project focused on developing and pilot testing a collaborative goal setting process for families of infants that is derived from goal concordant care. This paper describes the initial success of this endeavor, including a description of and guidelines for the collaborative goal setting process, initial findings from pilot testing of the process, reflections about participants' experience of the process, and a list of draft training and technical assistance tools.
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This report looks at interview data combined with research and analysis from additional sources to understand how families benefited from ARPA child care relief funds, with a particular look at Michigan and North Carolina.
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Featured Resources for System Building:
Child Care and Early Childhood Education Advocacy
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The Bipartisan Policy Center has just released their updated Building Bipartisan Support for Child Care Toolkit. The toolkit includes sections on understanding the child care funding landscape, supporting early learning, and building bipartisan solutions, and more. Each component can help advocates understand the complex child care and early learning landscape and guide conversations to engage diverse groups of stakeholders.
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Other Resources for Early Childhood Systems Builders |
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For funders supporting equity-focused research: Child Trends released a set of recommendations that summarize researchers’ experiences related to racial equity in research. This brief aims to connect researchers’ experiences and funders’ work in racial equity by interviewing researchers who have many years of experience integrating racial equity in research.
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For early childhood program innovators: The IDEAS Impact Framework is a toolkit designed by the Center on the Developing Child to help innovators in the field of early childhood build better programs and products to achieve greater impact in their communities. This toolkit is ideal for anyone involved in the development, implementation, and evaluation of programs for children and families.
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For early childhood educators: Teachers, Toddlers, and Tissues is a brand-new podcast that focuses on addressing commonly asked questions about health concerns in child care settings, covering topics including viral illness, mental and behavioral health, feeding, children with special needs, cultural diversity and inclusion, referrals to community resources, and more. The podcast aims to build early childhood educators’ understanding of, comfort with, and implementation of best health practices for children.
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About EC-LINC
EC-LINC is a network of partners with a shared goal—to support families and improve results for young children in communities across the country.
There is much to be learned about what it takes for early childhood systems to address population level outcomes at scale. There are a variety of funding streams, programs, and approaches—from multiple sectors—flowing into communities with the expectation that an integrated early childhood system be established.
Yet there is no central resource that brings together innovative local communities with state and national leaders to intentionally collect existing and new knowledge, develop resources, and test new ideas. That’s why the Early Childhood Learning and Innovation Network for Communities Initiative is here.
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Media Contact
Jessica Pika, Communications Director
Joshua Perrin, Communications Manager
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Center for the Study of Social Policy
1575 Eye Street, NW, Suite 500
Washington, DC 20005
202.371.1565
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