Women, Infants, and Children (WIC)
Why is helping families coordinate a developmental check-up important?
WIC agencies and their staff can play an important role in making sure that every infant, toddler, and preschooler is healthy and ready to learn and grow by ensuring that all children have a developmental check-up.
A developmental check-up can help with the early identification of developmental risk and/or delays in young children.
Early identification of developmental delays is important in order to ensure children receive early behavioral and educational interventions to support their development and health.
This website will provide you with useful forms to help coordinate a developmental checkup and coordinate other types of care to help support young children and their families
For further information about developmental check-ups click on the following link:
Why are WIC agencies in a unique position to promote optimal development and developmental check-ups?
WIC centers and staff can have frequent contact with young children and families and are often an important resource for families for information, counseling, referrals and social support.
WIC centers and staff may have behavioral or developmental concerns about a child.
WIC centers and staff may be the first resource a family turns to when they have a concern about their child’s health and development.
WIC centers and staff should have the resources to respond to any of these scenarios and share relevant health and developmental information with parents and early childhood providers in the community, such as healthcare providers or Early Start programs (Part C of Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act provided by Regional centers and local education agencies).
How can WIC centers use the resources and tools on this website?
It is important for WIC centers to have some basic forms and resources to help coordinate any services or supports that are critical to a young child’s health and development. You can use the forms on this website to do the following:
To share learning, developmental, and behavioral concerns with other providers in the community.
To help families communicate their need for additional services (e.g. child care services or finding a doctor) with other providers in the community.
To ensure the parent and the receiving-provider-agency are clear on the reason for a referral.
To help families understand and keep track of information regarding their child’s care.
To help you, the WIC provider, understand the referral, follow-up, and overall plan of a child’s care.