Leadership

Executive Training for Research Application (EXTRA)

Betty Reid-White

EXTRA Fellow, 2007–2009: Betty Reid-White, RN, MSc

Current position: Director, Integrated Community Health Services, Rural Avalon, Eastern Health

Current job role:

• Providing the management team and front-line staff of Rural Avalon, Eastern Health, with leadership support in public health nursing, home and community care, mental health and addictions, communicable disease control, environmental health, primary health care and child care and intervention service
• Promoting a culture of safety and quality
• Maintaining fiscal accountability
• Establishing operational priorities for programs while ensuring integrated service deliver

Intervention project: A Study of Developmental Outcomes in Healthy Beginnings: An Early Childhood Intervention Program

Healthy Beginnings is an early intervention program delivered province-wide in Newfoundland and Labrador. Implemented as a public health nursing program, it determines the needs of each postpartum family and ensures they are met with the appropriate level of intervention, referrals and follow-up.

Early identification, early intervention and prevention are emphasized to ensure optimal health outcomes for children. Children are screened with the Denver II Developmental Screening Test, which monitors developmental outcomes over time. For this study, outcomes of children born in Newfoundland and Labrador in 2003 and who have been identified as requiring priority for follow-up will be analyzed to:

• monitor change at the six-month and four-year preschool health checks;
• determine the rate at which the children achieved appropriate developmental milestones at the preschool health check;
• record Denver II results at the preschool health check for use as baseline data for future evaluation of the proposed enhanced home-visiting program; and
• determine the uptake of referrals in the priority group and identify differences in uptake between urban and rural areas.

This information will provide the province’s Department of Health and Community Services and regional health authorities with information to support program development and policy change.

EXTRA benefits:

The EXTRA program has provided me with a great learning opportunity through my participation in the residency sessions as well as opportunities to network with other health-care professionals across Canada. It has also been an opportunity to complete an essential review of a provincial early intervention program that could lead to program improvements, policy development and improved outcomes for young children and their families.

Most significant skills acquired through EXTRA:

The most significant skill I acquired was how to look objectively at a situation, program or setting and define clearly the related problem or issues that may need to be resolved. Only when a problem is clearly defined can logic models be developed and effective intervention strategies implemented to address the concern.