Enhancing the Well-Child Visit: Incredible Years in the Clinic

• by Bridget Cho, MA & Lauren Slagel, MPH, Children’s Mercy Hospital, Kansas City

At Children’s Mercy Kansas City, Dr. Briana Woods-Jaeger and her team are partnering with Dr. Webster-Stratton to bring Incredible Years to parents and their infants. Dr. Woods-Jaeger’s team works with community partners to deliver evidence-based, culturally relevant interventions to prevent toxic stress among families exposed to high levels of adversity. Incredible Years Well-Baby presents an exciting opportunity for us to intervene in infancy, promoting positive outcomes at this critical point in development.

In January of 2017, Dr. Woods-Jaeger and her team began a pilot phase of the Incredible Years Well-Baby program. Currently this is the first primary care clinic nationally implementing this evidence-based parenting program and we are excited with how well it’s going in its pilot phase. The program is being piloted at a Children’s Mercy primary care clinic located within an Early Headstart/Headstart program that serves low-income, minority families living in the urban core. The program is delivered by clinic social workers and psychologists who are referred to as “IY Coaches”, a name that was developed based on feedback from community parents. Thus far the program has served 39 families and 28 have participated in one or more follow-up visits. In reflecting on her experience as an IY Coach, clinic social worker, Katie Dalbey, LMSW, shared, “the Well Baby visits have served as an opportunity to build trusting relationships with parents and their new babies in our clinic and offer an extension to the family’s support system. The program has provided vital opportunities to share information about baby’s milestones and encourage everyday parenting skills. It is a gift of time to spend with a family in the newest moments of life with their child.”

We aim to implement IY Well-Baby in such a way that increases access for high-risk populations and maintains fidelity to the evidence-based intervention. Dr. Woods-Jaeger’s is conducting research on IY Well-Baby, evaluating the implementation process, participant satisfaction, and outcomes such as parental responsiveness, parenting self-efficacy, and parents’ stress. We are excited to provide and study this innovative integration of behavioral and pediatric health care for the benefit of families experiencing adversity.