Chapter Executive Director: Ray Saputelli, CAE
Project Leads: Nina Livingston, MD, FAAP (Connecticut Children’s Medical Center) and Ashley Starr Frechette, MPH (Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence)
Project Summary
Through this grant, the Connecticut Children’s Child Abuse team and Injury Prevention staff partnered with the Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence (CCADV) to create a leadership team, offer statewide education via a CT-AAP webinar, and offer an MOC 4 project for pediatricians.
Part 1 involved implementation of the Leadership Group to get feedback on ways that collaboration can be improved. This group included CCADV (CEO, Director of Health Professional Outreach and Director of Member Services), CT Children’s Suspected Child Abuse and Neglect (SCAN) Program (Child Abuse pediatrician and social worker) and Injury Prevention Center, a Department of Children and Families Intimate Partner Violence Specialist (DCF IPVS), 2 pediatricians (1 in private practice and 1 in community health), and 2 mothers and survivors of IPV. The team met once a month throughout this project to discuss implementing universal education in pediatric care settings. They brainstormed around the best time to give the “Healthy Moms, Happy Kids” safety card, to whom, and with what script. They discussed helpful tools to have on the walls and in bathrooms and tried to work through the processes that DCF must follow. This collaboration has shed an incredible light on the many different factors that must be considered to implement this process successfully.
Following the first few Leadership Meetings, the Director of Health Professional Outreach, CCADV, and the lead SCAN MD at CT Children’s, worked with the CT AAP to promote and present on “Beyond Screening: Universal Education on Domestic Violence in Pediatric Practice”. The training introduced the basics of IPV, health consequences for adults and children, the resources available in CT, and the current successes that the SCAN team has had with universal education implementation. The training offered CEU credits to providers that attended and provided the opportunity to join the second part of the proposed project, the MOC 4 project.
Part 2 of the grant project was applying for, and running, an MOC 4 project. This ended up being a key to the project because the “carrot” of being able to offer MOC 4 credit for participating in the program was very helpful in recruiting MDs.
The team recruited 6 pediatricians to join their MOC4 project which ran from May 2022 until October 2022. CCADV, the Injury Prevention Center (IPC) and CT Children’s led this group. CT Children’s has agreed to issue MOC 4 credit to each of the participating providers if they implement universal education into their pediatric care setting, attend the MOC 4 meetings, and collect data on the effectiveness of their efforts. The CT Chapter team hopes to show the ease and effectiveness of universal education to all caregivers through this project.
