Strategies

Provide preschool education and comprehensive support to families with low incomes, including small classes, student meals, and home visits with referrals for social service support as needed

Provide child care, parent education, physical health and mental health services, and other family supports to pregnant women and parents with low incomes and children aged 0 to 3

Provide prescriptions or medications to patients diagnosed with treatable STIs to give to their partners without provider visits; also called patient-delivered partner therapy (PDPT)

Notify partners exposed to an STI of their risk, encourage testing, and refer to services; also called contact tracing, or partner counseling and referral services

Regulate mental health insurance to increase access to mental health services, including treatment for substance use disorders

Use regulation to extend nurse practitioners’ (NPs’) scope of practice to provide care to the full scope of their training and skills without physician oversight, especially for primary care

Improve work environments for nurses via establishment of strong nursing leadership, organizational support, etc.

Support quality improvement efforts in early child care and preschool via financial incentives, standards, processes to monitor standards and ensure compliance, etc.

Provide center-based programs that support cognitive and social-emotional growth among children who are not old enough to enter formal schooling

Provide center-based programs that support cognitive and social development among young children from families with low incomes, with supports such as home visiting or parental education