Healthy North Dakota Early Childhood Alliance (HNDECA)

As the ECCS grant evolved, it was evident that support would be needed from multiple partners. The Healthy North Dakota Early Childhood Alliance (HNDECA) was created to achieve the goals of this grant. HNDECA oversees the ECCS process to ensure implementation of federal guidelines and good stewardship of the planning funds.

Comprised of approximately 90 program providers, stakeholders and parents, HNDECA facilitates enhanced communication, develops a shared knowledge base regarding North Dakota early childhood programs, and identifies common goals and challenges for change.

Five HNDECA subcommittees relate to the five priority areas of the ECCS grant. The HNDECA subcommittees further develop objectives and strategies to ensure implementation success and focus on strategic planning, public relations, evaluation and sustainability. Subcommittee members build on existing strengths and integrate, rather than duplicate, current initiatives and services. The HNDECA seeks to strengthen early childhood service collaborations and partnerships to support families and communities.

HNDECA Vision
Support families and communities in their development of healthy children who are ready to learn.

HNDECA Mission
Provide leadership by planning, developing and implementing collaboration and partnerships to support families sand communities in their development of children (ages birth through eight) in the following priority areas:
* Access to health insurance and medical home - providing comprehensive physical and child development services for all children in early childhood, including children with special health-care needs and assessment; intervention and referral of children with developmental, behavioral and psycho-social problems.
* Mental health and social emotional development - providing services to address the needs of children at risk for the development of mental health problems and service delivery pathways to facilitate entrance of at risk children into appropriate child development and mental health delivery systems.
* Early care and education and child care - providing services for children from birth through age 5 that support children's early learning, health and development of social competence.
* Parent education - providing services that provide support to parents in their role as prime educators of their children.
* Family support - providing services that address the stressors impairing the ability of families to nurture and support the healthy development of their children.

HNDECA Major Goals
To influence systems change to increase and sustain comprehensive health-care coverage for all North Dakota children, ages birth through 8.
To support statewide access to comprehensive individualized children's mental health services, inclusive of tribal communities.
To develop a state-level entity for early care and education that builds a statewide network and ensures agency collaboration.
To ensure that all parents, and people in a parental role, of children ages birth through 8 have access to parent education.
To increase parent leadership through education and support.

Healthy North Dakota Early Childhood Alliance website

The North Dakota Department of Health, Division of Family Health, does not assume responsibility for the content obtained from external hyperlinks accessed from this website. Any links to external sources are outside of our domain. Information on external websites does not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the North Dakota Department of Health or the Division of Family Health.

Copyright � 2005 North Dakota Department of Health

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