Tools and Resources
From Early Intervention to the transition to adulthood, we have informational materials that may help you care for children and youth with special needs.
- Office Lookup Locator by Zip Code and County: Find out which of our offices serves a county, or which of our Chicago-area offices serves a Cook County zip code.
- Social Determinants of Health Information and Resources: Tools from the Division of Specialized Care for Children to help understand the social determinants of health and their impact on children and youth with special healthcare needs.
- A Practical Guide to Implementing the National CLAS Standards: For Racial, Ethnic and Linguistic Minorities, People with Disabilities and Sexual and Gender Minorities: This toolkit aims to improve health care for minorities and at-risk populations. It is suitable for use in a healthcare setting and in community settings that are not clinical but focused on improving health.
- Pediatric to Adult Transition Toolkits: Developed by the American College of Physicians to facilitate more effective transition and transfer of young adults into health care settings.
- Health Care Transition Resources: The Illinois Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics provides resources to help providers transition youth with special healthcare needs to adult health care.
- HealthMatters, Illinois!: The HealthMatters™ Program is a collaboration between the University of Illinois at Chicago and six states that aims to improve the health of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD). The HealthMatters™ Program team has partnered with the Illinois Disability and Health Program at the Illinois Department of Public Health as part of HealthMatters, Illinois! to assist provider organizations with promoting healthy lifestyles to people with I/DD while meeting the requirements of the National Core Indicators.
- Got Transition/Center for Health Care Transition Improvement: A cooperative agreement between the Maternal and Child Health Bureau and The National Alliance to Advance Adolescent Health that aims to improve transition from pediatric to adult health care through the use of new and innovative strategies for health professionals and youth and families.
- Early Intervention Handbook for Providers: Provides information on the program policies, descriptions of services and billing codes for providers.
- Illinois Sound Beginnings: A parent-friendly website designed to provide information and resources to families of children who are deaf or hard of hearing.
- National Resource Center for Patient/Family-Centered Medical Home (NRC-PFCMH): A cooperative agreement between the Maternal and Child Health Bureau and the American Academy of Pediatrics. The NRC-PFCMH is focused on ensuring that all children and youth receive care within, and have access to, a medical home.
- Shared Plan of Care: A Tool to Support Children and Youth with Special Health Care Needs and Their Families: A shared plan of care can help implement key functions of the medical home model for children and youth with special health care needs. The National Center for Medical Home Implementation, in collaboration with the National Academy for State Health Policy, created a fact sheet on key components of a shared plan of care, the role of families in creating and maintaining a shared plan of care and strategies state agencies can utilize to support implementation of a shared plan of care.
- Toolkit for Primary Care Providers: Health Care for Adults with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities: This website provides best practice tools to help providers more readily serve adults with intellectual or other developmental disabilities.
- Online Training for Transitioning Youth to Adult Health Care: This course was prepared by the Illinois Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Division of Specialized Care for Children (DSCC). The goals of the Transitioning Youth to Adult Health Care Pediatric Course are to equip pediatric primary care medical homes with the information, tools and resources to help patients and their families make a smooth transition to adult health care and to help practices measure and improve transition care and planning.
- Web-based Video on Communicating with Persons with Disabilities: This brief video was created by the National Service Inclusion Project and sponsored by the Corporation for National and Community Service.