Healthy Development

Healthy Development programs and services ensure expectant parents and those with young children have access to comprehensive, coordinated care that maximizes the child’s physical and emotional health and regular screenings to identify developmental delays, disabilities, and emotional concerns. Examples of services include developmental screening tools, healthcare-focused programming, behavioral health services, and programs addressing environmental hazards.  

  • Arbor Circle’s Keep Early Education Positive(KEEP) is a program that offers comprehensive support and consultation to child care providers, teachers, and parents when a child from birth through five years of age is facing any kind of social-emotional difficulty in child care or preschool.
  • Arbor Circle’s Infant Toddler Developmental Services (ITDS) is a home-based service that helps parents/care providers build strengths and skills, bond with their children, and create a sense of safety and emotional security in their family. Arbor Circle provides guidance for a variety of behavioral concerns and parental issues, including depression and anxiety.
  • Bethany Christian Services has a program called Hands Connected which is a unique approach to providing quality child care to refugee and culturally diverse children by training program-eligible adults to become licensed child care providers. The navigation portion of this program ensures that diverse children and families receive comprehensive support in navigating available community resources, with priority given to those families engaging with the Hands Connected Provider Network. 
  • Cherry Health's Improving Access to Early Childhood Assessments and Treatment Services will focus on providing outreach and assistance to families with children/patients at Cherry Health's Heart of the City Center, who have been referred for further developmental assessment and treatment.
  • Early Learning Neighborhood Collaborative’sEmpowering Parents Impacting Children (EPIC) supports the specific disability-related needs of children and provides parents with education and resource connections, partnering with parents to increase their ability to advocate for and support their children’s educational and developmental needs.
  • Easterseals Michigan’sHealthy Development program intervenes with children and families to create more positive outcomes and includes treatment for behaviors such as trauma-specific infant mental health, intergenerational trauma treatment, and child-parent psychotherapy.
  • Family Futures provides Learning Kits with age-appropriate learning materials to 1,500 Kent County three- and four-year-old children who are participating in its Connections program, as well as other partners’ programs.
  • Family Promise of Grand Rapids supports families with children that are experiencing or at risk of experiencing homelessness and are supported and connected to community resources using a trauma-informed approach.
  • The Hispanic Center of Western Michigan supports expectant mothers and parents with children from birth through five years of age by providing them with opportunities to access resources and programs to enhance the development of their children.
  • Kent County Health Department leads the Fetal Infant Mortality Review (FIMR) Network is a collective community effort using an approach that is community-based and action-oriented to ensure Kent County is addressing the social, equity, economic, and health factors that contribute to healthy births in Kent County.
  • West Michigan Partnership for Children’s Parent Engagement Program equips, engages, and involves parents to prevent re-entry into the foster care system and support timely reunification.

Environmental Home Health

Environmental health hazards in the home can contribute to lead poisoning in young children, which can lead to birth defects, delays, and more. These Ready by Five providers work on the issues related to lead and other environmental hazards that children can be exposed to in Kent County. 

  • Healthy Homes Coalition of West Michigan’s NIDO Home Screening Project provides in-home support to address lead hazards and reduce asthma triggers. Services are provided in the home and with a trained Healthy Homes Specialist completing a more comprehensive home assessment for lead, asthma, and accidental injury risk.
  • The  Kent County Health Department’s Environmental Home Health screenings to pregnant residents and families with children from birth through five years of age. This service assesses potential health hazards in a home and then educates families on what to do if your family has been exposed as well as ways to limit future exposure.

Network Training Lead
Organizations funded under Healthy Development – Network Training Lead will increase knowledge in the Ready by Five network. Training will be for all direct service professionals funded by Ready by Five and their direct supervisors.

  • Family Promise will provide Early Childhood Based Trauma-Informed Training
  • Health Net of West Michigan will provide two training series - The Care Model Training Series and the Supervisor Learning Cohort
Share Article: