The Vermont Department of Health promotes Vermont's system of Universal Developmental Screening, through education, outreach, and family engagement in early care and education settings, medical homes, and other community partners such as Children's Integrated Services.

Help Me Grow Vermont (HMG VT) is a comprehensive, statewide system that ensures that early detection leads to the linkage of young children and their families to community resources and services through a centralized contact/call center and no-wrong-door approach. Under HMG VT Provider Outreach, the Vermont Child Health Improvement Program (VCHIP) conducts training and on-site coaching to both child health providers and early educators on developmental monitoring, screening, and linkage to developmental resources and services.

To meet the goal of universal developmental screening for all Vermont children and to ensure coordination of screening and services between health and early education/social service providers, Vermont is rolling out a Developmental Screening Registry. The ability to provide surveillance of this nature contributes to quality improvement efforts already underway to ensure early detection and early intervention. Results of developmental screen conducted on Vermont children are collected and stored in a central repository. This repository will be available to health care providers, early care and education providers, and home visitors to view results on individual children, as well as practice-level reports.

Additional strategies include embedding developmental monitoring tools and resources in early childhood settings using CDC's "Learn the Signs. Act Early." program materials that teach parents to track their child's developmental milestones as a compliment to formal screening. We have implemented the Mid-Level Developmental Assessment (MLDA) model for high quality, easily accessible developmental assessment of children.

The Vermont Child Development Clinics (CDC) are a statewide multidisciplinary developmental pediatrics clinical program held periodically in all 12 regions across the state, to provide comprehensive, diagnostic, developmental evaluations to Vermont children who have concerns about their development.

All Vermont's young children and their families.

Developmental screening is an essential population health indicator; screening reaches vulnerable populations (children who are living in poverty, culturally and linguistically diverse, etc.). Surveillance and screening promote public awareness of typical child development and advance early identification of children at risk for developmental or behavioral delays and disorders which is critical to the well-being of children and their families.

Both developmental surveillance and developmental screening should be done for all young children. Developmental surveillance is an ongoing, longitudinal, cumulative process of recognizing children who may be at risk for developmental delay. Developmental screening is the use of brief and objective standardized tools to identify children at risk for developmental delay and the need for referral for evaluation. It is a formal process that occurs at defined intervals according to national standards, at points of entry into services and any time a child is identified to be at risk through surveillance.

Early and appropriate screening can identify children with behavioral and developmental concerns who need a more comprehensive evaluation and linkage to developmental resources and services. Timely evaluation and follow up can identify concerns that can be addressed early in the child’s development, leading to better long term outcomes for the child.