This announcement solicits applications for the Healthy Tomorrows Partnership for Children Program (HTPCP). The purpose of this program is to promote access to health care for children, youth and their families nationwide, and employ preventive health strategies through innovative community-based programs. This program supports HRSA's goals to improve access to quality health care and services, to build healthy communities, and to improve health equity. HTPCP funding supports projects that provide clinical or public health services, not research projects. HTPCP applications MUST represent either a new initiative (i.e., project that was not previously in existence) within the community or an innovative new component that builds upon an existing community-based program or initiative.
Developing a successful HTPCP award proposal requires time and planning. The Proposal Development Guide can assist you in planning for the project and help you consider the various components of the application including community assessment, establishing community partnerships, developing an evaluation plan, and putting together a budget. Additional information about the program can be found at the HTPCP web site.
HTPCP awards: 1) support the development of community-based initiatives that plan, implement, and evaluate innovative and cost-effective approaches to promote identified preventive child health and developmental objectives for vulnerable children and their families, especially those children and families with limited access to quality health services; 2) foster/promote collaboration among community organizations, individuals, agencies, businesses, and families; 3) involve pediatricians and other pediatric primary care providers (family physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants) in community-based service programs; and 4) build community and statewide partnerships among professionals in health, education, social services, government, including State Title V, Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Programs, and business to achieve self-sustaining programs.
You are encouraged to propose projects in the following topical areas: early childhood development, school readiness, developmental/behavioral pediatrics, medical home (including enhanced family and youth engagement), care coordination and case management, oral health, behavioral health, mental health, school-based health, and nutrition and physical activities to promote healthy weight. HTPCP encourages the use of innovative health information technology to increase access to a wide variety of stakeholders in communities. HTPCP also supports innovative strategies to support outreach and enrollment efforts to assist families to access, understand and use health insurance, including accessing preventive care services.
The Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB) encourages organizations to develop proposals that incorporate and build upon the goals, objectives, guidelines and materials of the Bright Futures for Infants, Children and Adolescents initiative to improve the quality of health promotion and preventive services in the context of family and community. The Bright Futures Guidelines provide theory-based and evidence-driven guidance for all preventive care screenings and well-child visits. Bright Futures content can be incorporated into many public health programs such as home visiting, child care, and school-based health clinics. Materials developed especially for families are also available. Complete information about the Bright Futures initiative and downloadable versions of the Bright Futures Guidelines for Health Supervision of Infants, Children and Adolescents, Third Edition and other Bright Futures materials, can be found at http://brightfutures.aap.org. Bright Futures has been particularly useful to HTPCP recipients in identifying innovative models of care centered on health promotion and prevention, partnering with stakeholders at the state and local levels to share lessons learned from the provision of anticipatory guidance on well-child care from ages 0-21, and fostering improvements in clinical and public health practice.
HTPCP brings innovative services to communities as determined by state and local needs assessments. Projects supported by HTPCP are encouraged to partner with diverse public and private sector stakeholders to test out evidence-based practice at the community level and transform health care from the ground up.
A defining characteristic of HTPCP is to build sustainable projects after federal funding ends that will improve access to care and reduce health care costs. Data indicate that 87 percent of HTPCP grants are partially or fully sustained five or more years after federal funding has ended (American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), 2015). HTPCP investments have generated visible successes. For example, one recipient created a community asthma initiative, a comprehensive quality improvement program to provide enhanced care to pediatric asthma patients with a history of hospitalizations or emergency department visits. The project has demonstrated improved health outcomes, increased cost-effectiveness, and reduced health disparities among asthma patients. Hospitalizations for asthma have dramatically decreased, saving $1.46 in hospital care for every $1 spent on prevention. After the first year, asthma-related emergency room visits for children in the program plummeted 68 percent compared with emergency room trips in the year before enrollment, and there was an 85 percent drop in hospitalizations. The project is now being replicated in other states.
Over the past 27 years, HTPCP recipients have demonstrated a commitment to serving vulnerable and at-risk populations in underserved communities. Seventy-four percent of former HTPCP recipients reported that there was an enhancement in the cultural/linguistic competence of services in the community as a result of their projects (AAP, 2015). HTPCP will continue to strengthen and extend this commitment to serving vulnerable and at-risk populations by encouraging prospective applicants to propose projects that incorporate preventive health, communication, education, coordination and integration of care, and access to psychosocial supports into their innovative models of care. Measures that identify and address factors that contribute to poor health outcomes in these populations should be included in project evaluation plans.
HTPCP awardees will be expected to accomplish the following activities during the five-year project period:
Develop innovative interventions (e.g., clinical, public health, public policy) to promote identified community-based child health and developmental objectives;
Conduct pilots of clinical or public health interventions in community-based settings;
Deliver clinical or preventive health services targeted to community needs (e.g., obesity prevention, smoking cessation, behavioral health assessments);
Support the development of family-centered, community-based initiatives;
Provide technical assistance/resources to professionals, consumers, families, Title V, and other agencies; and
Assess the impact of the grant program.
