The Massachusetts Department of Public Health and Boston’s Public Health Commission are using a Project LAUNCH expansion grant to bring their original LAUNCH model to the cities of Springfield, Worcester, and Chelsea. The Massachusetts LAUNCH model is focused on integrating a “power team” of an early childhood mental health clinician and a family partner with lived experience in a pediatric primary care setting. LAUNCH staff support families in addressing sources of stress, and partner with families and pediatricians to promote children’s social–emotional wellness. The three expansion communities will serve a diverse group of high-need families, including immigrants and refugees from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Massachusetts LAUNCH is using an existing replication toolkit from the original LAUNCH grant to inform technical assistance and training. It will also convene a learning community with stakeholders from each of the expansion sites and work on policy and fiscal reforms to develop a sustainable funding strategy for the “power team” model. An evaluation team at Northeastern University will analyze data collected about social–emotional wellness of both children and caregivers and about the program’s implementation to assess success and fidelity to the original Massachusetts LAUNCH model.
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Cohort 7, Funding Period 2015–2019
Original LAUNCH Grant: Cohort 2, Funding Period 2009–2014
