Delaware’s Title V Block Grant

As part of the Title V Maternal and Child Health (MCH) Block Grant, Delaware has developed a five-year State Action Plan Snapshot to address our priority needs. Our Plan is organized by six reporting domains, which includes five MCH population domains (Women/Maternal Health, Perinatal/Infant Health, Child Health, Children and Youth with Special Health Care Needs [CYSHCN], and Adolescent Health). The sixth domain addresses state-specific Cross-cutting/Systems Building needs.

This State Action Plan offers an at-a-glance snapshot for the public, our partners, and our stakeholders to better understand our five-year plan. This report identifies the priority needs within each of the six domains, the program objectives, key strategies, and relevant national and state performance measures for addressing each objective.

Delaware’s Title V priorities and plans for the coming year are presented here by population domain, as defined by the federal Maternal and Child Health Bureau. These population domain “snapshots” convey a brief overview of our goals, progress, and plans for each health area. In some of the health areas, we are building on years of previous work and partnerships and have very detailed action plans for the future. In others, we are forging into new territory and will be spending the time over the course of the five-year grant cycle learning, building expertise, and establishing new relationships.

Please note that these plans represent the role that the Title V Program can play in improving the health of mothers and children, given our resources and capacity, and are not intended to be a comprehensive strategic plan to address each of the targeted health areas. Moving the needle on any of these health priority areas will require collective effort from many partners throughout the state. For more detail, please review Delaware’s full Title V Maternal and Child Health Block Grant application.

As we continue to face the ongoing consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, Title V remains committed to improving our ability to support programs that continue to address the maternal and child health populations. During the summer of 2021, MCH sought to better understand how COVID-19 has impacted our populations as well as how our stakeholders have been adapting to the ongoing challenges of the pandemic. Additionally, our goal was to be more informed of the ways that our partners were adjusting to address COVID-related response needs.

We asked our partners and stakeholders to complete a voluntary survey so that we could determine how each health domain is being impacted and whether revisions to our health priorities are necessary. We asked questions about our partners’ experiences, such as the use of telehealth and virtual services, as well as the importance of each health domain, given the pandemic, shifts in staffing, and more.

This report is a summary of our Mini Needs Assessment. We invite you to read through the report for response analysis and additional information.

To create solutions to address the complex challenges of the Maternal and Child Health system, it is important to understand how the system and its components shape health. The Five-Year Needs Assessment process allows state Title V programs to begin to understand the complexity of these challenges, identify needs, and select priority areas of focus.

In spring 2020, the Maternal and Child Health section contracted JSI Research and Training Institute, Inc. to conduct key informant interviews with identified stakeholders to gather insight into the strengths and needs of the MCH populations, as well as gaps and leverage points in the system of care.

A total of 13 interviews were completed with stakeholders with expertise in at least one of the five MCH population domains: 1) Women and Maternal Health; 2) Perinatal and Infant Health; 3) Child Health; 4) Adolescent Health; and 5) Children and Youth with Special Health Care Needs. Informants included administrative and clinical staff as well as service coordinators. The interview asked informants to describe their organization’s role in addressing a specific population domain, its reach and population focus, its partnerships, the strengths and challenges of Delaware’s current system of care, and disparities and emerging issues.

Delaware’s needs assessment process is collecting information from stakeholders in a variety of ways, including focus groups with community members, a survey of stakeholders, and key informant interviews with partners. Each source provides important perspectives, context, and data to help the Title V program identify priorities.

The survey was ultimately distributed to 851 stakeholders, after undeliverable email addresses were removed. Of those, 172 people accessed the survey, but 53 people either did not answer any questions (n=27) or answered only the first question or two (n=36). The remaining 109 survey responses were quite usable — they were made up of 104 completed surveys and five partially completed surveys (made it about halfway through). The analysis presented in this report is based on the 109 usable surveys, which represent a 13% response rate (109/851).

This report is a summary of the findings of the Stakeholder Survey. We invite you to explore the Assessment Analysis and Recommendations for additional information.