New Haven Healthy Start
"HWF staff members really change the dynamic of your team. This extends well beyond their incredible technical competence and experience. You really get a sense for how much the HWF staff people love their jobs, believe in their projects, and bring out the best in all the stakeholders involved in the process. Equally important, HWF staff members use an approach that allows everyone to take responsibility and move the discussion to a higher level - a level that will solve the problems rather than manage the symptoms."
- Delores Greenlee, Project Director, New Haven Healthy Start
In the mid 1980s, the New Haven Commission on Infant and Child Health was formed to respond to the high infant mortality rate in New Haven. In 1997, New Haven became the only Connecticut city to receive federal funding for a Healthy Start initiative to provide outreach and health education to women at risk for experiencing an infant death, low birth weight baby or a premature birth.
New Haven Healthy Start enlisted HWF to develop a community action plan to strengthen the City's maternal and child health care system. HWF facilitated a planning process involving a broad array of community stakeholders - residents, health care providers, managed care organizations, the New Haven Health Department, and funders. HWF then distilled the input from these stakeholders into a coherent and straightforward action plan that mapped the route for Healthy Start to achieve its goals.
This action plan helped Healthy Start secure two additional rounds of federal funding in 2001 and 2005. Federal funds have enhanced outreach, depression screening, care coordination among service providers, and health education and training, and have supported the development of a model tracking system. Through these and other efforts, New Haven has experienced a nearly 50% reduction in the infant mortality rate, along with declines in low birth weight and preterm births.