Project LAUNCH: Linking Actions for Unmet Needs in Children’s Health

Through Project LAUNCH I was able to find information and resources, and develop a work plan for my family. It helped me navigate stress, connect with friends, and encouraged me to spend more time with my children. Project LAUNCH truly keeps families strong and children safe. – Project LAUNCH Parent

Children’s early experiences lay the foundation for their success in school and in life. Project LAUNCH (Linking Actions for Unmet Needs in Children’s Health) promotes the wellness of young children from birth to age 8 by addressing the physical, social, emotional, and cognitive aspects of their development. Project LAUNCH supports parents as they raise their young children, and it works to ensure that young children in the community are reaching developmental milestones and enter school ready and able to learn and succeed.

Project LAUNCH is funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Since 2008, Project LAUNCH has supported states, tribal nations, territories, and communities to create coordinated, integrated, and effective early childhood systems. Grantees implement five prevention and promotion strategies across child-serving systems:          

• Screening and assessment: This strategy centers on identifying developmental and behavioral issues early in a child’s life by embedding screening and assessment across a number of child focused settings. Grantees not only promote the use of these techniques, they work to ensure appropriate referrals and ongoing care.
   
• Enhanced home visiting through increased focus on social and emotional well-being: This strategy seeks to expand and enhance existing home visiting services by adding or increasing the focus on the social and emotional well-being and behavioral health of young children and families. For example, grantees hire a mental health consultant to become part of a home visiting team, train visiting staff on mental health issues, or create/partner with existing home visiting networks to better coordinate services for families.
   
• Mental health consultation in early care and education: This multilevel approach to promotion and prevention teams mental health professionals with people who work with young children and their families to improve their social-emotional, and behavioral health and development. Grantees fund consultation in early care and education programs – this can include observation of children and classrooms, training for early care and education staff, screening to support early identification of children at risk of mental health challenges, and support to build program capacity to promote young child wellness.
   
• Family strengthening and parent skills training: This strategy aims to increase parents’ knowledge of parenting and healthy child development, including the importance of positive parent-child interactions and responsive and nurturing relationships. Project LAUNCH grantees bring evidence-based parenting support and education programs into communities, train professionals to lead parenting programs, expand the capacity of programs to serve more families, and promote parent leadership.  
   
• Integration of behavioral health into primary care settings: This strategy seeks to increase the capacity of staff in primary care settings to detect developmental, social-emotional, and behavioral issues in children early in their lives. Project LAUNCH grantees embed early childhood mental health clinicians into pediatric medical settings to promote family-centered, relationship-based services. Cross-disciplinary teams work together to assess, support, and follow families with infants and children who are identified by providers as showing early signs of social and emotional difficulties or experiencing risk factors known to lead to poor social- and emotional-development outcomes.

Project LAUNCH grantees bring organizations together to promote collaboration and improve the integration and efficiency of child-serving systems such as primary care settings, early care and education, and home visiting programs. Project LAUNCH system-integration efforts include developing policy, identifying funding mechanisms to ensure long-term support for young children’s wellness (e.g., changes in Medicaid reimbursement policies), cross-sector workforce development efforts, sharing data systems, expanding referral systems, and other activities to improve communication and simplify services for children and families at the local level.     

A recent policy statement jointly issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Education recommends mental health consultation as one evidence-based approach to help prevent suspension and expulsion  in early childhood settings. Project LAUNCH’s work aligns closely with this and other recommendations in the policy statement. Project LAUNCH works to promote social and emotional competence, and to prevent the need for suspension or expulsion.