Family Engagement Collaborative

The NeoQIC Family Engagement Collaborative brought together Level II and III SCNs and NICUs for 3 years to integrate the work already done as part of the Safe Sleep and/or Human Milk collaboratives with an emphasis on increased engagement with families. The collaborative focused on addressing barriers to family communication, increasing access to social supports, increased family engagement in care, and involving parents in NICU structures, and reducing disparities in race/ethnicity or language status. This project was funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to support project management, data coordination, and conferences.

As with other NeoQIC collaboratives, we included the following structures as part of participation in the collaborative:

• Quarterly webinars and twice/year in-person (virtual during Covid) meetings with expert speakers
• Bi-monthly webinars for team sharing on improvements on these important initiatives
• High-yield (and fun!) didactics on QI methods and family engagement topics
• Platform for tracking data improvement

NICU Discharge Parent Videos

One of the projects that came out of the Family Engagement collaborative was the creation of family education videos on key elements of NICU discharge. These videos were created in 2022. There are 5 videos in English and 5 in Spanish, each lasting 4-5 minutes long, easily viewable on a phone or tablet. The videos feature families speaking about their own experience. Messaging aligns with the American Academy of Pediatrics. Video creation was supported by the Section on Neonatal Perinatal Medicine and W.K. Kellogg Foundation. These videos are freely available and meant to be used widely.