43. Supporting Utah Families: Resources and Care Coordination Explained

This episode features a discussion with care coordinators Carrie Martinez-Wolf and Eric Christensen from the Utah Department of Health and Human Services. The conversation illuminates the role of care coordinators in connecting Utah families with children, especially those ages zero to eight and those with special needs, to a plethora of resources. 

These resources range from developmental supports to basic needs like food and housing, all offered free of charge and accessible to anyone in need, without regard to immigration status or location within Utah. The care coordinators emphasize the importance of making these resources known to families and providers, highlighting their role in facilitating connections to services such as early intervention, home visiting programs, SNAP, and TANF, among others. 

The episode aims to spread awareness about the available support and underline the message that families are not alone in addressing their challenges.

If you would like to connect with Care Coordinators, start by contacting them through one of three ways:

Email: Care.coordination@utah.gov

Call their number: 801-273-2804

Fill out this survey.

01:34 Introducing the Care Coordinators: Eric and Carrie's Stories

05:24 The Heart of Care Coordination: Connecting Families to Resources

07:17 Personal Motivations: Why Eric and Carrie Do What They Do

12:24 Exploring the Scope of Care Coordination Services

16:01 Deep Dive into Zero to Eight Care Coordination

21:36 Making Connections: How Families Access Services

22:27 Navigating Support for Children with Special Healthcare Needs

22:40 Understanding Disability Determination and Support Programs

23:51 The Role of Care Coordinators in Simplifying Processes

25:07 Exploring Waiver Programs and Their Benefits

26:28 Assistance Beyond Healthcare: Housing, TANF, and SNAP

28:12 Integrating Support Systems for Families

28:46 Spotlight on the Utah Parent Center

31:53 The Children's Center: Focused Support for Young Children

35:11 Expanding Access to Care Coordination Services

38:56 Closing Thoughts: The Impact of Community Support

Follow along on The Sad Moms Club's Instagram: @the.sad.moms.club

Follow along on The Sad Moms Club's Instagram: @the.sad.moms.club

Transcript

0:00

Okay. Hi, welcome back to the sad moms club. Today, we're going to talk to two care coordinators. And before you like, just sign off, cause you're like, I have no idea what that means. I'm going to try to do a quick explanation for it. So this is a group of people who know about all sorts of resources throughout Utah, specifically for kids. So this is more for moms who already have children. We talk about a program that helps you connect to resources if your kids are zero to eight. So if you're seeing some developmental delays and you're concerned about it Or if you have food needs, housing needs you can call. Or email this group of people. And they can help you get connected to resources within Utah. We also talked to someone who works more specifically with kids with special needs. So we talk a lot about what he does as well. the important thing is though that this is a completely free resource. Anybody can access it. If you're a provider and you have a concern about a client, You could call. If you're a parent who has a concern about your kid, you could call. If you have a family member you're concerned about you can call. So it's a completely free resource. I'm going to link their email. And their phone number in the show notes. Oh, and I should say their names are. Carrie Martinez Wolf and Eric Christianson. The first boy that's on the podcast, I think. Or man. Rather. so without further ado, let's get started. Welcome to the Sad Moms Club. Welcome to the Sad Moms Club. Welcome to the Sad Moms Club.

Joni: 1:34

Today we have, is it Eric Christensen and Carrie Martinez Wolf? Is that right? Okay, good. And they're both care coordinators within Utah, and they're going to teach us about what that means, because I still don't fully know. Eric, do you mind first just introducing yourself? Like, where do you live? How long have you lived in Utah? What's your background? How'd you get involved in this type of

Eric: 1:53

Sure. Christensen. I am with Utah Department of Health and Human Services. I've been with DHHS for 25 years, which is Shocking to say that because it doesn't feel like it's been that long. I am a Utah native. I've lived here the majority of my life with the exception of two years of serving in LDS mission in Costa Rica, where I pick up Spanish. Raised a family here. I have three adult children and have a master's degree in public health and have worked with children with special healthcare needs. For almost that entire time, those 25 years,

Joni: 2:32

Do you feel like your time serving Costa Rica, led you into working with underserved populations?

Eric: 2:37

I don't know about that. I do know it gave me a better concept of how good, a lot of times we have it in the States versus, how other people in other parts of the world live. What got me into public health was I was newly married and I was working graveyard shift in manufacturing and my wife at the time, said, wow, there's a job at a community health center and they need someone to speak Spanish. And that was the only qualification I had. So speaking Spanish is what got me into the public health arena. And I've been there ever since.

Joni: 3:13

very cool. And then Carrie, could you introduce yourself as well?

Carrie: 3:16

You bet. So I'm Carrie Martinez Wolf and I am born and raised in Utah myself. I spent three years in Arizona working with the county attorney as a victim advocate, but otherwise have been working with children. Ages, I used to line up my stuffed animals and teach them and then my younger brothers had to suffer through that as well. And so I feel like the stage was set early on for me that I was going to be in a teaching role, which has led me to work with a really large group of young children and their families. Pretty. Pretty fulfilling life.

Joni: 3:53

Was there a certain like education path that led you to working with kids or more just your passion?

Carrie: 3:59

was going to be a teacher and I actually got a scholarship in high school for the Utah career teaching scholarship. And went to school and got a degree. And just never veered from that path is in working with children I've enjoyed every second of it.

Joni: 4:14

Awesome Do you mind first I mean you kind of already said this But if there's anything you want to add like why did you end up here? Why do you do what you do and then any personal stories are welcome if you're comfortable sharing them

Carrie: 4:24

Sure. So my mom grew up in a very rural community with no services or supports. And my father also grew up in a very rural community and also is Spanish. So, That combination brought them together at college and it's just been in my, my Genetic makeup from the beginning of time to be helping the underdog. And then I just decided that from a very young age, I was going to work with children, like went into 4 H even in all of their childcare classes. And I had a little, bag that I took out babysitting because I just knew that that's what I wanted to do is drawn to it and then it's led me to a variety of different roles within the state of Utah early intervention, special education, children with special health care needs and now luckily I get to help With this care coordination role, which is connecting families that maybe don't know about everything that's available to them because like my years of experience I can connect families to what they need to be connected to.

Joni: 5:24

That's so amazing. It doesn't do any good if they don't know that the resources exist. So your role is so essential I think I'm understanding like you guys are like the point person you know All the resources and then you match the person with the resources that serve their needs that kind of the role.

Carrie: 5:41

Yeah, perfect. And I'll ask Eric to chime in after me. So it's not just on me talking, but we want to make sure that when we're working with a caregiver, guardian, provider, family that not only are we, you know, informing them or teaching them about resources or programs or services that are available, but helping make that connection for them so that we're not just hanging up the phone with the family and saying, have at it. We're making the phone calls with the family or for the family. We called it a closed loop. Referral comes in, we help make that connection and that's when we're done, is when that connection has been made and the guardian, parent, caregiver, whatever, feels very connected to that additional support.

Joni: 6:30

That's so huge. I don't know what makes me so fascinated by resources. I think it's because I don't feel like I'm so alone in helping people. It's like there's so many things and so many different people that can help you. I don't have to be all of that for you, but I do find I can teach all day long, but I often have to hold someone's hand in the nicest way being like, okay, this is the person you should call first. And then once you call them, come back to me and we'll talk or let me call them for you. do therapy and I prescribe medication, but I'll have my clients, if I'm not doing therapy, have them call therapists in the office during our time. Cause I'm like, I know you're not going to do it. I've given you these assignments and you haven't been able to because you're depressed because you don't have time. There's all these reasons just. We'll spend this hour with you actually connecting to these resources, and then we'll be able to move your care forward. But before we get too far, Eric, can you tell me a little bit about why you do what you do? What makes you passionate about this?

Eric: 7:23

You asked me earlier about whether my experience in Costa Rica led me to serve populations that I do. And I guess in thinking about it, I've always had. A passion for working with our Spanish speaking populations so that Spanish has really come in handy. Our Bureau or office, as we call it now, it's Department of Health and Human Services. Used to do itinerant clinics. So we would go around the state. We would go in the state plane, which isn't as glamorous as it sounds. It's just an eight seat twin prop plane. And we would take some specialists to various parts of the state. Moab, Blanding, Price, Richfield, different far flung parts of the state. We'd go to those small towns and we would do developmental. screenings and examinations and, and, and help get the resources that those children needed, but they needed to have diagnoses first. So I think you get special accommodations in school and I really loved going to. small town, Utah and meeting all of those terrific families and just feeling like we were helping families have some choices and able to make some decisions for their kids who needed just a little bit of a boost, a little bit of help. And so that really made me feel enthused. Prior to that, I did for 15 years, our neonatal followup clinic, and we worked with children who were. discharged out of the newborn intensive care unit. These were little tiny kids. A lot of times 1250 grams or less. That's two pounds, 14 ounces of weight or less for kids who were born at 26 weeks gestation or less. And so Watching those kids come into our clinic and seeing them grow and develop and flourish to the best level they could was just absolutely amazing. I'm also the father of a son with type one diabetes. He was diagnosed right before he turned four years old. So we had a preschooler who needed insulin and trying to manage that with two full time working parents. And dealing with, a kid growing up and being non compliant and faking his blood sugar readings by, I'm surprised the kid lived. Let's just put it that way. Cause he was sneaky about taking care of his blood sugars, but we knew what it was like to have to deal with the school and healthcare plans and just all of that mess. And we were two educated parents with pretty good jobs and it was tough a lot of times. And so I think for me, it was always a quest to say, If it's tough for two parents who have it pretty good, how hard is it for some of our families who are in rural areas or might have less education or might have several kids that have a lot of special health care needs? How much help and support might they need? So this has become personal for me over the years that I just really feel a connection to these communities. And add into that an amazing staff that I've had the privilege of working with. And it just feels like it's the right thing to do. So I've been connected to this for a really long time.

Joni: 10:42

Yeah. Thank you for sharing all that. It is helpful to bring it to a personal level because it's easy if you don't have those kinds of concerns about your kids to not care or just not think about it. It's not that you don't care, but you just don't think about it and it helps it feel a little bit more accessible and understanding why it matters so much. don't know if people who are listening will actually, Be the ones who need these services or be the ones who have friends who needs these services. But regardless, it's just like the more people who can know that they exist the more people you guys can help. So we talked about what you guys do being like the point person for the family to connect them to resources. Do you want to add to that? Anything else you want to explain further?

Carrie: 11:21

you brought up a really great point, is that we can get referrals from anywhere, so the family can reach out and make their own referral, a pediatrician can reach out, a neighbor, a sister. We got a referral last week from a sister wanted us to contact her sister. And the point is, is that there's no wrong door, right? you can talk to us and we'll help open a door for you and help provide access to those. what we call internal program support. So any program that's inside department of health and human services, but also with department of workforce services and any collaborating partner or program that's outside. So it's finding what the family needs and through a conversation and getting to know them and where they live and we're statewide, so we have access. points for everybody throughout the state, but no wrong door. And if we can't help you, we're going to work behind the scenes to figure out how we can help you. If If

Eric: 12:24

I would just add to that piece that, we're talking specifically right now about some early childhood care coordination, but our integrated services program is really amazing. And that for the last 10 years, we've worked with children and youth with special healthcare needs. these are kids who usually require supports and services of an amount more than the general population. And they're usually children who. Have chronic behavioral health, physical health emotional needs more than the regular pediatric population. So we've been providing kind of intensive care coordination, if you would like to call it that, for the last 10 years. This is the end. Care coordination for our general zero to eight pediatric population that Carrie is providing is newer funded. We're on our second year of this grant cycle, and it is targeted to just parents who are saying we. Might not know about resources that exist just for development of our kids, for preschool and supplemental nutrition like wick or other basic. programs out there that have nothing to do maybe with a child with special health care needs. But the beauty of this is if a family called Carrie looking for some of those types of, maybe child care or some other things. And in the course of doing an interview, Carrie and her team asked a few questions and discovered that child has special health care needs. They would do a lot of initial work and then seamlessly transfer that family over to our children with special healthcare needs care coordination team within department of health and human services to take on that little bit more challenging role that might include some intensive medical care coordination or some other and pieces that would be related to a child that has maybe. And autism diagnosis or has a diagnosis like attention deficit disorder or maybe, hard of hearing or deafness

Joni: 14:30

I was going to ask Carrie, are you over the zero to eight early intervention? And then, Eric, you're more over the integrated services team? Or, sounds like there's a lot of different teams involved.

Eric: 14:41

We, we are the integrated services team as a program. And we have within the integrated services program are, and I'm going to use an acronym ISP for integrated services program. So we have ISP children with special healthcare needs. We have ISP PDG, which is preschool development grant. And then we also have ISP Afghan early childhood care coordination, which is through department of workforce services and is specific to Afghan refugees for zero to five year old children. And this is for families who have entered into Utah within probably the last two years. And we're working specifically with those families to get those children kindergarten ready and ensure that they're connected with supports and specialists education, preschool primary care physicians and that developmentally they're meeting developmental milestones.

Joni: 15:41

Awesome. It sounds like it's hard to condense what you do. There's a lot. I need like a spreadsheet or like a map of this person's connected to this person which is why you guys exist. So no one else has to do it. So we can just talk to you and then you can guide us how to access those resources. So let's talk about some specific resources.

Carrie: 16:01

I can list some of the services and supports that we are doing as far as the zero to eight care coordination, which is those services and supports will look very similar to the Afghan refugee. And then Eric can highlight the, ISP children with special healthcare needs care plan or access to service that way. Cause they do vary. As Eric said earlier, we'll exhaust all of these, get through the door services and then. Once some of those initial concerns are addressed and we know they have a special health care needs, we send them to Eric for just like intensive care coordination. So they may need help applying for DSPD, et cetera. let Eric go into it, but for recording purposes, I can start talking about just some, a handful of the resources that we As a zero to eight care coordinator or a care coordinator would do and to begin with, we would do an intake again. Like, What do you need? What are you looking for? What brought you to us and then if they're between the ages of zero and five. Or zero and six, and they want to do a developmental screen. We will do an A. S. Q. three or an A. S. Q. S. C.

Joni: 17:08

And what are those?

Carrie: 17:10

ages and stages questionnaires. So it's parent directed. We recognize that's. The caregiver, parent, guardian is the expert of the child and they answer a series of questions and then it shows us whether the child is developing on target or might need some monitoring or needs referral in a certain area. And so we can do that with a family if they're interested. And then that also helps guide us. Like maybe the family was calling in for parenting classes. And through our initial intake, we find that there's some fine motor concerns. And then we can make referrals based on that fine motor concern as well as give, parenting classes. But we can also, if a family is having concerns on the social emotional screen and wants to go further and do an M chat, we can help with an M chat, which is a basic screening tool used to identify some social emotional or adaptive skills.

Joni: 18:09

What would that be catching specifically?

Carrie: 18:12

If you have concerns about your child being on the spectrum or having any sort of a difficulty adjusting to changes in routine and environment, and we can then make further referrals based upon what that M chat says And then from there, I mean, any other, if mom is, is postpartum or expecting, we can do the Edinburgh screen with the mom, which is a, postpartum or mental health screening tool as well. And all of this is very confidential, like we're not sharing this information with anyone, but the parent, caregiver, guardian that's called in. And saying, okay, this score says this, do you want us to make additional resources available to you? Do you want us to call? And some of those resources that we would be calling for the family or with the family are early intervention, Home visiting. Both of these are in home services provided to the family. home visiting could have some qualifying guidelines like age and location and income. And then we also have early intervention that has like a diagnosis or an evaluation that is required. But in home is a really great way to go for a lot of families because all of that support and education happens in the child's environment where they're the happiest. We also have WIC. We want to connect families to women, infant, and children. We can help walk them through the process of applying for that. We have Early Head Start, Care About Child Care, additional programs in the area that we work with that might have therapeutic preschools or have the opportunity to provide assessments for their children in a classroom setting. It just depends on what the family is asking for and then Also, during that time of working with the family, we'll provide educational support. So, the CDC Milestone Tracker app is a great free resource for families to look at to provide developmental at home lesson plans, I like to call it. Hang this up on your fridge and do this with your kid type stuff and the same with the Vroom and both of these are Totally free. Vroom app is sponsored through a program in Utah that is helping connect families to this you can do it on a text where I'm in the grocery store I need help. My child's having a complete meltdown and Vroom sends you like a really quick text Text message of like, try this, point out animals on cereal boxes, or something like that. And then of course we have all these other amazing resources throughout the state that help families like Help Me Grow Utah, the Utah Parent Center Connection, 2 1 1. And just by working with a family, we know which connection is going to be the most beneficial for them. And then after we make, This connection with a family and find out what do you need? Then we make those referrals for the family. So through of the 30 years I've been doing this, that most parents say, gosh, it was so great. I met with Carrie and her team and they had all these ideas and suggestions, but now I got to go home and call 30 people and that's not helpful. for a family. We want to walk them through what the CDC milestone tracker is, walk them through how to apply for upstart. And then call head start and make that referral for the family with their permission. Yeah,

Joni: 21:36

so if I was a mom who wanted to use these services, I could self refer, like I could contact you guys and it's all over the phone, it sounds like. they don't have to actually go anywhere to meet with you guys.

Carrie: 21:49

correct. They can self refer by a QR code, by email, by phone. And then we leave it up to them. Do you want to have a virtual meeting so we can see each other's faces and you know who you're working with? Do you only want it to be a phone call? Do you strictly want email? Families are busy and maybe mom, the only thing she can do is quickly send a text. On our lunch break. Totally fine. We'll do the best we can. Might take a little bit longer, but we don't mind. We're happy to do that.

Joni: 22:19

Yeah, That's helpful to know that it's meant to be as accessible as possible to these people who are, yeah, everyone's busy. And then if you're busy and you're stressed for money or you're stressed because your kid's not doing well, like any extra stressors just makes it all the harder. Eric, can you tell us a little bit more about the services you work with? Can I ask?

Eric: 22:39

Sure. With our children with special healthcare needs, we're often looking at disability disability determination. Other. types of programs that come with having that type of a determination. So quite often we're working with families to get them on to possibly medicaid. Also we work with social security to get a disability determination families that receive what's called supplemental security income. So s. I. That's often the acronym that goes around out there are categorically eligible. The child is if determined disabled by the social security administration, the child is eligible uh, usually for for Medicaid if they receive supplemental security income monies, SSI provides a small medical subsidy to the household to pay for the child's. increased cost of care. And if the family qualifies for that, usually the child will qualify for state Medicaid. So there are concurrent processes that have to take place. Family applies with the social security administration. They also apply for Medicaid and sometimes those processes get a little bit confusing. So our care coordinators can help the family sort out the process. It's a lot of paperwork. It's a lot of verification. Sending in information and our care coordinators can really help the families straighten that out. as we work with children who may be determined disabled, try to get them on DSPD. That's the Division of Services for People with Disabilities. Uh, They have a waiver that provides some additional services of some respite care and other supportive type services for families. very much. who have family members who qualify for that service and that service isn't limited to just Children. But if you qualify for D. S. P. D. Services, those go for life. There's a lot of times frustration with families because D. S. P. D. Has a huge wait list and that's what you'll hear every year in the legislature about. We've opened up X number more spots on the DSPD wait list, but it's never enough. And there are always people who are waiting, but we always say, get your child or your, Disabled person on that wait list because you'll never get to the top of a wait list that you're not on.

Joni: 25:03

Yeah. Can I ask, is that income based?

Eric: 25:07

is a waiver program. And what waiver programs do in the state is they generally have disregard about income and assets. So that's what generally is the waiver. It doesn't. Follow general Medicaid criteria for inclusion on some of those things. Again, it's a waiver program, and if you qualify for that they look at some additional services, but it is based off of acuity. So they look at people on the list who have the greatest needs. So some people can be on there for a long time, but if you do make it to the top of the list and qualify for DSPD services, they do offer good amount of services. There are other waiver programs. There is a medically complex children's waiver for kids who have a lot of medical needs. These might be children who might use a lot of equipment or something. They might. Use respirator and wheelchair and some, other life saving equipment. So a lot of times our care coordinators can help families work through a lot of that type of stuff and help them figure out what types of services are available. We also collect a pretty thorough medical questionnaire just to look at the kind of the medical history and work with the families to really determine what sorts of services they might need. We also help families. Figure out sometimes housing type of situations or connection with TANF and SNAP. Some of the food or financial assistance benefits that come through a Department of Workforce Services. We've helped families fill out those applications,

Joni: 26:48

What does SNAP and TANF stand for? Sorry, just before we got too far from it. I'm familiar with WIC, but I've never heard of the other two.

Eric: 26:55

SNAP and TANF. So temporary aid for, I think it's needy families. I'm embarrassed to say I don't know the whole acronym. I just know the acronym. TANF is financial assistance for families who qualify. Usually there's deprivation of support in the household. So maybe a parent is absent from the household or something like that. Snap is what we used to call food stamps. Supplemental nutrition, and I don't remember the last two in the acronym, but SNAP is basically what we used to call food stamps. And it's, on a benefits card. Carrie's team does a lot of those things as well, looking at insurance and Medicaid and all of that for that population too. And Carrie, I'll defer to you on that for just a minute.

Carrie: 27:40

I was just going to let you know that I put TANF and SNAP in the chat. Can you see it? that way you have it spelt out for you.

Joni: 27:46

Uh, I can see it. Temporary assistance for needy families and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

Carrie: 27:52

And then, yeah, we could do the same if we're working with a family that hasn't applied for that and from working with them and finding out that they do qualify for women's infants and children, we're going to go back and have them work with SNAP help them apply for that as well, because, they could get both, which is amazing. And I think in the future, I think they're working on this now, and Eric can correct me if I'm wrong, but they're trying to tie the system together. So if SNAP and TANF are working with a family, DWS, and they know that the family would also qualify for an alert goes to WIC so that WIC can reach out and follow up with the family, and then vice versa. I don't No, if that's going to happen, like now, but it's coming, there's lots of conversations about it. And as you know, it takes a minute to roll a rock up a hill.

Joni: 28:43

Yeah, that's good to know. That's great. One thing we haven't talked about that I'd like to learn a little more about is the Utah Parent Center and what type of services they offer. I've seen them and I went to their fair actually, but I still don't really know what they do.

Eric: 28:57

Well, I'll do the Utah Parent Center and then Carrie, you can probably talk about the Children's Center, which I think is another important one as well. The Utah Parent Center is a family to family health information center. That each state is required to have it is run by parents of children who have special healthcare needs or disabilities and they provide amazing support, referral care coordination as well, if you will, for our families across the state. Children and families from birth through young adult, they provide a lot of support for children and youth and support for the families for those children and youth who may be on the spectrum. They work with neurodivergence kids with special health care needs, developmental delays and all sorts of aspects like. How do I help my child who has developmental delays who's experiencing bullying? how do we set up a special needs trust for our child for once we're parents and we pass on? How do we leave money for, our child who may have special needs? How can we set up guardianship? For our child or supported decision making. So they have all sorts of webinars and courses and topics that they teach all the time. And they're just an absolutely amazing line of support. They even provide support in the schools for several of the school districts for families who may be needing to set up an individualized education plan. for a child who is participating in special education. And those can get a little bit tricky sometimes to negotiate. So if families feel like they need support for setting those up, the Utah Parent Center can have a representative there to help make sure that families are making reasonable demands. But also getting everything they need in those individualized education plans for their child. So they're an incredible support service for children and families across the state, particularly in that special health care needs realm.

Joni: 31:17

that's good to know. Yeah, I have a good friend whose son has Angelman syndrome. And I want to say I saw they have like support groups for families and I've thought, I wonder if she, the mom would benefit from that. Cause it's just been like a real, it's just really hard.

Eric: 31:33

the more you dig into the Utah Parent Center, it's surprising to see what they have. But I mean, they do have support groups all over the state. everything they do is just professional and well done. So and we're very proud to partner with them on any project that they do.

Joni: 31:48

very cool. And then Carrie, do you want to talk about the children's center? Is that what it's called?

Carrie: 31:53

Yeah. It's called the Children's Center of Utah. And just add on to Eric. They have what they're called is district consultation experts. Every district has a Utah parent center representative, and then the family can reach out to that person and so it's like coaching and mentoring. because If I'm working with a family and I've helped them, Go through the evaluation with the school and the child now is qualifying for IEP services, individualized education plan. I have them take those courses with the Utah Parent Center on IEP development and rights and download the parent handbook and then also If it's an Alpine, they have a district consultant who we can connect them with that can provide coaching and mentoring. So it's pretty exciting. Utah Parents Center is really awesome that way. Now the Children's Center Utah was in downtown Salt Lake City, but now it's out in like the West Valley area off of Bangor Highway. And they work with usually under the age of five children who are experiencing any sort of trauma or their practice is trauma informed mental health counseling and crisis intervention, but they do family counseling. They don't work with a child without also working with the parents. They also do a variety of education tools. So every month there are hundreds of different, educational videos and consultations and information that's available through them that parents can take virtually. So they don't need to go in and they can take it when they have time basically. So the Children's Center, we make referrals to that facility based upon some the ages and stages questionnaire, or from parents who are saying, my child's having a very difficult time at the daycare they're enrolled in, and you'll hear this more often now or more than you probably think you would, but there are children who are experiencing being kicked out or expelled from childcare settings. And have nowhere to go and also need to be with a group of providers and in a classroom that is very supportive to that child. So we make referrals to the Children's Center based on, of course, parent need, child interaction, and scores on the screen. And it is just one of these programs that leads to such amazing growth and development with the child and the parents. teaching them how to interact with their own child. It's just a great program.

Joni: 34:30

I'm like overwhelmed with the information so much, but it's fantastic.

Carrie: 34:36

yeah, that's why we're here. Like we know it's overwhelming Even my staff, they're like, this is overwhelming for me. I can't imagine being a parent, right?

Joni: 34:45

Yeah. That's a great point. I guess what I'm learning is if you're struggling in some way, you guys are just good people to talk to, whether it's with child care or food you're everywhere Which is great. One thing i'm wondering if someone's in their pediatrician's office are you guys ever in the pediatric offices or do you guys your own separate thing and then? You They just refer you to them.

Carrie: 35:11

We are actually not inside any pediatric offices. However, we are working with pediatricians across the state who can refer to us. And then we are hoping to have a couple of days a week in one or two weeks. Major like health clinics around the Wasatch Front. However, I want to add that our local health departments, we do have 7 participating local health departments. They are in Tooele, San Juan, I have to think about this, Wasatch, Davis, Utah, and Tri County. Those seven local health departments have an assigned caregiver for the zero to eight population. So if there's a family that lives in that area, they can just reach out to that local health department and receive these exact same services. And then the other six that are non participating, if a referral comes in we, meaning the ISP zero to eight care coordination team will work with them. We're trying as hard as we can to have someone be able to work with anyone who calls in the entire state.

Joni: 36:21

what would be the best way to if someone wants to self refer? Do you guys have a website or a phone number? What's the best way to connect to you guys?

Carrie: 36:28

Our group phone number is 801 273 2804. And we have an email, which is a group email as well. And it's care, C A R E dot coordination at utah. gov. And then we do have some social media clips that I can send to you that have like a QR code. And the QR code just takes them to a really quick survey that says, would you like a care coordinator to reach out to you? And if so, how? Email or phone or text messaging. And then that's how we are receiving our referrals. We have flyers and handouts. We're doing presentations so that the word can get out there. Our flyers are double sided in English and Spanish, and we're distributing them everywhere we can.

Joni: 37:17

It's so hard to get the word out. Do you guys have way more funding and you're way bigger? But even just my little podcast, I've been surprised that basically social media ads has been like the way I've gotten people to know that we exist and the ads are really cheap. Um, But every time I put them out, I find like hundreds of moms that follow along. So I don't know if you guys have a social media presence, but that does work for me.

Carrie: 37:40

Eric can chime in cause I don't know the exact rule, but we can't have social media, there are like one or two programs that are approved and they get bombarded with everybody else having like us put up. So what we do is if you're how we grow Utah and you have social media, Hey, here, put up our flyer. We're working with primus partnership. Here's our flyer or here's our social media campaign. We just like beg other people to post for us. Yeah,

Joni: 38:10

that's like where so many people are. It's just, that's where they're hanging out.

Carrie: 38:14

PDG funds, like a whole bunch of different activities. And one of them is this parent support group. So honestly, Johnny, we should talk more. And if you have one or two parents that seem like they're great advocates for parents in the state of Utah, I'd love to get them involved they call it parent education support and engagement subcommittee and PDG is helping to fund a stipend for that. But the 1 thing that parents on that group say is, we get reached through social media. That's how parents get reached period. Tick tock is huge and we can't even use tick tock

Joni: 38:46

yeah, I have someone in mind. I have a couple people in mind who might benefit from that. Just even being able to make some meaning out of a difficult experience with their kid. Are there any resource, I mean, there's so many, but are there any big things that we miss that you want to make sure you share about?

Eric: 39:02

I don't know about big resources. I just want to say that after all these years, we are sometimes surprised at Needs that come up or resources that we didn't know existed that our great care coordinators track down for families. So I guess what I would say is if families have perceived need and they have, young kids in the household or if they have kids with special health care needs, Please feel free to reach out to us. We will be more than happy to connect you with support, services, specialists, educational resources anything that could be of benefit. And certainly dig through the weeds and see if there's something we've not maybe dealt with before that we can connect families to. We're connected to a very large network of care coordinators across the state. And we've been able to reach out through that network to ask some questions for families to say, Hey, does anyone know about a certain type of a service in. Central Utah or Northern Utah and all of a sudden through that network, you start getting a lot of emails from across the state where people have said, have you tried this or we've found very great success when we use this organization or did you know that Medicaid will pay for this type of a service? And so we're through that network quite often able to find really great resources for families that sometimes. We didn't know existed. There's a lot of power out there in sharing resources and experiences across that network and ultimately getting families connected with something that could really support their family and be beneficial to their child.

Joni: 40:55

Yeah, I think something I hear from a lot of I hear from moms, cause that's what I work with is that if they have a kid with autism or a special needs kid or just a behaviorally challenging kid, they just feel really alone in it. And so it's really neat to know that they have this whole network of People that are behind them, they just have to know that you guys are there. I think that's like a very, yeah, hopeful message. they don't have to do all the research themselves. you guys actually have a lot of the knowledge and then you're willing to help find those resources that that you don't know about yet. Anything you'd like to add, Carrie, to wrap up?

Carrie: 41:28

I would say that's such a valuable point that you both just made and that we don't know everything, but we know a lot of people so we can reach out and try and find other solutions or answers for families, but also we don't mind. Sharing all of our information with another provider who's working with a family or with a family who has a sister who's struggling. Like any way we can share what is available for the family to anyone who can help somebody, we don't mind doing that. I'm meeting with a provider. Tomorrow that she's working with a family that she knows won't let them refer. So she wants to know what do we have that she can then share with the family? again, that no wrong door, reach out and we'll try our hardest to get you connected to what you want to be connected to.

Joni: 42:23

That's awesome. So like as a provider, we can call you guys. I somehow didn't even think about that until you just said that. So thank you. I don't have anything else to add unless you guys do,

Eric: 42:33

Well, hey, I was just going to add one last thing here. I think we said it before, but there is no cost to families at all to use our services. So entirely free. We don't care if you have insurance, what your insurance is. If you don't have insurance, we don't bill your insurance for this service. Were entirely available. As a service to the community for this type of support. So there's no no hesitancy for people to call in.

Joni: 43:02

I'm really glad you said that. I gathered that, but I'm glad you're being more explicit. And I'll be sure to say that in the beginning of the episode, too, because, yeah, free resources people can get on board with a lot more.

Carrie: 43:13

We say no cost and no eligibility. And thank you, Eric. That's such a good point. Meaning We're not going to check immigration status or you have to live in this area or any of that is seriously, you're looking for an answer and we'll help you.

Joni: 43:30

Awesome. That's really powerful. It's really incredible work that you guys are doing. I'm just glad there's people that about families like you guys do.

Carrie: 43:38

I love It

Joni: 43:40

comes through that you guys both really love it. You have to love it to work in a very imagined, sometimes difficult system to work in.

Eric: 43:48

It's been a very impactful through the years and we've met some just beautiful families who I think just touched our lives and in lots of ways. And, uh, I'm grateful for that experience through the years. It's really been a rich life, I think, working with these families through the years. And I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Joni: 44:06

Thanks for sharing that, Eric. Okay. Thank you guys for your time. I appreciate both of you.

Eric: 44:11

Thanks, Tim.

Carrie: 44:11

Thanks, Joni.

44:12

Welcome to the Sad Moms Club. Welcome to the Sad Moms Club. Welcome to the Sad Moms Club.