Children’s Integrated Services (CIS) delivers early intervention, family support, and prevention services that help ensure the healthy development and well-being of children, from before birth up through age 5. The CIS State Team within the Child Development Division (CDD) administers CIS. Children's Integrated Services (CIS) | Department for Children and Families (vermont.gov)

Through contracts between CDD CIS and community partners, CIS serves pregnant and postpartum people, children ages birth through 5 (and through 12 for Specialized Child Care), and early childhood education and afterschool regulated programs. Eighty-two percent of CIS clients are Medicaid recipients and approximately 50% receive CIS Early Intervention.

CIS is an innovative model unique to Vermont. It is designed to improve child, family, and program outcomes by providing client-centered holistic services, effective service coordination, individualized service plans, and flexible funding to tailor services to client and regional needs.  A CIS Coordinator and three collaborative teams (administrative, consultative, and referral/intake) in each region guide and sustain service integration.

There are 4 key sets of services within CIS. They all promote healthy child development, connect clients with community resources, and employ a strengths-based approach. They are:

• Early Intervention (EI): Services for infants and toddlers, birth to age 3, who are experiencing a developmental delay or have a medical condition with a high probability of resulting in developmental delay or disability, and their families.
• Strong Families Vermont Home Visiting (SFVT HV): Home or community visits for families during pregnancy, as well as with young children from birth to age 6, who have questions or concerns about parenting or seek short term support to address needs. Health and well-being, feeding and nutrition, early learning, and social emotional development are all possible areas of focus. SFVT includes two evidence-based models: Maternal Early Childhood Sustained Home Visiting (MECSH) delivered by nurses and Parents As Teachers (PAT) delivered by family support home visitors.
• Early Childhood and Family Mental Health (ECFMH): Services for children birth to age 6 who are experiencing social, emotional, or behavioral challenges, and/or seek support to effectively utilize community services, and their families. ECFMH also consults with and educates early childhood education programs and other organizations regarding children’s healthy development, social interactions, self-regulation, and access to mental health services.
• Specialized Child Care (SCC): Services for families with children ages 6 weeks to age 13 with high needs who seek to connect to and experience success in high-quality early childhood education and afterschool regulated programs. SCC also supports regulated programs in accessing training and resources so they are able to safely and successfully include all children in their programs.