The Ohio Department of Health (ODH), along with On Maternal, Child and Family Health, Help Me Grow and the Early Childhood Home Visiting team, sponsored the first ever 2018 Ohio Home Visiting Summit, on April 16, 2018 in Columbus, Ohio. The goal was to facilitate a conference that focused on the pragmatic issues, the local innovations and the collective wisdom that arises from the inspired leadership of the best Home Visiting Local Implementing Agencies (LIAs) in the nation.
The day-long event included keynote speaker, Diedra Henry-Spires, CEO of the Dalton Daley Group, a leading non-profit advocacy group which is home to the Home Visiting Policy Network.along with various roundtable discussions and presentations from the region’s top public health experts. These experts covered such topics as Obesity Prevention in Early Childhood – A Parenting at Mealtime and Playtime Pilot; Supporting the Work with a Group Reflective Supervision Model, Understanding, Appreciating and Engaging Families; Nurse-Family Partnership: Challenges and Successes in Addressing the Needs in High Risk Clients; Advancing Our Story through Effective Advocacy and Communication; Toward Trauma-Informed Home Visiting: Addressing Depression and Social Support; Increasing Effectiveness of Home Visiting and many more.
Stacy Scott PhD, MPA, executive director of the Global Infant Safe Sleep Center presented: The Necessary Equation: Birth Equity and the African American Family.
“As we work to reduce infant mortality in high-risk communities, a platform is needed to develop leadership, coalition building and influencing policy to enhance male involvement in the maternal and child arena,” said Scott. “It is understood that generations of perniciousness, including false historical narrative characterizing black men as uncommitted fathers, has unfairly shaped the public perception of an entire population of people.”