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Preschool Development Grant - August 2024 |
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Happy 3rd Birthday, Help Me Connect!
 Help Me Connect celebrates 3 years of serving families and caregivers in all regions of Minnesota. The site launched August 2021 as a tool to help professionals working with expectant and parenting families find local programs closest to a family’s home and facilitate connections. Today, Help Me Connect has grown into a trusted resource not only for providers, but for parents to explore the numerous services available to support themselves and their children.
Help Me Connect is available in English, Spanish, Somali and Hmong with over 14,500 database listings of programs and services that support healthy prenatal and early childhood development, education, mental health, basic needs, safety and well-being of children and families. The site has welcomed over 430,000 unique visitors with top search terms including autism, housing, diapers, transportation, and mental health. The Help Me Connect team continues to collaborate with internal and external partners to update the site’s resources and to make it easier for families and caregivers to find what they need to thrive.
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Help Me Connect was signed into law on May 23, 2023 with funding to support ongoing maintenance and numerous enhancements planned into the future, such as a provider referral system, access to electronic developmental and social-emotional screening, an online chat function, and exploration of a toll-free number for families and providers to access navigation support.
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New videos were developed to share the stories of two local providers who work as early childhood navigators in their communities and how they use Help Me Connect and other resources to support families. The Provider Story videos are available on the Help Me Connect YouTube channel, along with other videos produced over the past three years.
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Free Help Me Connect marketing materials, including posters, rack cards, business cards, and flyers, are now available through the Help Me Connect Material Order Form. These materials are free to all professionals working with pregnant and expectant families and families with young children. Printed materials are in both English and Spanish with Hmong and Somali downloadable files on the About page.
The Help Me Connect team has developed new partnerships with a variety of early childhood stakeholders to learn about the work happening across the state to support families with young children. This has led to many exciting collaborations with organizations such as Little Moments Count, Children’s Defense Fund, United Way 211, Parent Aware and Child Care Aware of MN, and the Center for Inclusive Child Care (CICC). The later produced a podcast available on the CICC website: Help Me Connect: Resources for Families | Center for Inclusive Child Care.
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Help Me Connect will launch a professional referral system this fall designed to help providers make referrals on a family’s behalf to selected community resources through a secure, electronic portal.
- A continued priority is to build relationships with racially and culturally diverse community organizations to improve access to services where providers speak the language(s) and represent similar cultural practices as the families they serve.
- The Help Me Connect initiative will move to the Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF) in January 2025. The initiative has been organizationally housed at the MN Department of Health in partnership with the MN Departments of Education, Human Services, and the Governor’s Children’s Cabinet. For more information on this transition, visit the DCYF Implementation webpage.
Questions? Improvement suggestions?
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