The Children Guide provides step-by-step guidance to help Community Health Centers and other primary care practices strengthen person-centered, population-based pediatric care. It focuses on childhood immunization status, well-child visits during the first 30 months of life, child and adolescent well-care visits, and adolescent immunization, including HPV, Tdap, and meningococcal vaccines. The guide supports practices in applying American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and Bright Futures preventive care guidelines while making cultural, technological, and process changes that improve quality and equitable outcomes for children, adolescents, and families.
The guide includes foundational and going deeper activities addressing multidisciplinary pediatric care teams, clinical policies and workflows, care gap reports and registries, proactive patient outreach, pre-visit planning, standing orders, social-emotional development, pediatric behavioral and social needs, adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), postpartum depression screening, vaccine hesitancy, trauma-informed care, care coordination, and family-friendly access.
Additional guidance covers home and community visiting services, referral pathways, care management for children with complex needs, adolescent behavioral health outreach and treatment, community partnerships, non-practice-based access to immunizations, dyadic care, health equity, quality measurement, health-related social needs, health information technology (HIT), and continuous quality improvement.