Preventive and Developmental Services

Healthy Steps North Carolina Residency Initiative

Overview

Healthy Steps for Young Children was developed in 1994 as a new approach to primary health care for young children, birth to age 3. With this approach, children's developmental as well as physical health receive careful attention by establishing a trained child development expert (Healthy Steps Specialist) in the pediatric setting.

With the addition of the Healthy Steps Specialist, the program supports mothers and fathers in nurturing the emotional, behavioral and intellectual growth of their children through a partnership between trained Healthy Steps Specialists, physicians and parents. Studies have demonstrated that Healthy Steps:

Improves the quality of pediatric care
Enhances communications between pediatricians and parents
Helps children receive appropriate preventive services
Improves residency training in behavior and development

The Healthy Steps: North Carolina Residency Initiative, funded by the Duke Endowment, will build on UNC's Healthy Steps Program by assisting all residency programs in North Carolina (Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, Winston-Salem; Duke University Medical Center, Durham; East Carolina University Brody School of Medicine, Greenville) to implement Healthy Steps using proven quality improvement methods.

Goal of the Healthy Steps Program

The overall goal of the program is to improve training of pediatric residents in behavior and development issues with the understanding that greater than 50% of these residents will in turn practice in North Carolina following their residency.

Grant funding provides support for each site for an 18-month period to establish a Healthy Steps Program. Staff members of the UNC Healthy Steps program and the Center for Health Care Quality at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center provide ongoing support and training through: