How might we identify families of newborns?

[alexsoble]

Could we potentially work...

• With the Housing Authority?
• With churches?
• With birth certificates?
• With census information?
• With hospitals?
• With local businesses — i.e. sign up in the diaper aisle?

Brainstorming / conversations this week with:

• Denise Taylor (Director of Communications, City of Somerville)
• Anna Doherty (Director, SomerPromise)
• @dazzaji (MIT + Commonwealth, talked at Code for Boston 5/5/15)

Next up:

• Let's make lists of the pros & cons of different approaches

[alexsoble]

A few pros & cons for each:

• Census
  • _Pros_
  • Excellent for getting in touch with families who move to Somerville with young children (as opposed to families who have babies while living in Somerville)
  • _Cons_
  • We have heard that people from immigrant communities and especially undocumented people can be wary of responding, out of fear that it might impact their immigration status
  • These are some of the people who need outreach the most
• Housing Authority
  • _Pros_
  • May fit nicely with services & information the Housing Authority already provides
  • _Cons_
  • Not universal
• Hospitals
  • _Pros_
  • Direct contact at moment of birth
  • _Cons_
  • A Somerville family could have their baby at one of many different area hospitals; complicated mapping of town where family resides to hospital where baby is born
  • HIPAA concerns
• Churches
  • _Pro_
  • Strong community connection and community trust
• Birth certificates
  • _Pros_
  • Everyone born in Somerville has one
  • Could potentially be extensible to other cities/towns who want to do something similar
  • _Cons_
  • Doesn't include children whose parents moved to Somerville
  • With high mobility, the information will become out of date quickly — i.e. if the goal is to do follow up a 1 year, 2 years, etc. other sources of information needed
  • _ToDo_
  • [ ] Need more information on legal & parental consent for this idea
• Outreach with local businesses — i.e. "sign up in the diaper aisle"
  • _Pro_
  • Good component for a grassroots strategy
  • _Con_
  • Opt-in means that families with the highest needs may not receive the packets

[AmirHadjihabib]

Nicole had an interesting idea of looking into Social Security registration. Parents have to sign up their child after birth with the birth certificate. Could be a good time for parents to register for the Welcome packet or for the city to gather information.

[dtaylorq]

Funny, was just looking into Soc. Security sign up too. We should definitely look into this, but not all parents sign up their kids right away. With a broad approach that is multi-lingual and based on birth certificates/social sec., combined with a few outreach efforts that we could discuss to catch folks who move here later (info sent to all daycare providers, churches, sent home with older siblings when they enroll in school, posted in grocery stores, included with resident info distributed with parking permits, etc.), you have the best option to catch most. But we have to build in some easy/friendly way for parents to let us know a change of address too.

[marimuraki]

On call with United Way, we learned that their Welcome Baby program identifies families through:

• local health department (birth records)
• hospital / maternity ward
• home visit by nurse
• medicare / medicaid
  • "thought as ideal but not as effective"