Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 21, 2022

CONTACT: Chelsea Wuth, 517-241-2112, [email protected]

Benefits of having a family physician recognized during Family Medicine Week

LANSING, Mich. — Family medicine is a specialty practiced by physicians with extensive training to provide care for people of all ages, from birth through end of life, and are experts in treating a wide range of symptoms affecting the body from head to toe. In recognition of the importance of family medicine, March 20-26, is recognized as Family Medicine Week by the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS), the Michigan Academy of Family Physicians and the Michigan Association of Osteopathic Family Physicians.

Family Medicine Week highlights family physicians’ dedication to providing comprehensive, coordinated primary care to residents across the state to protect and improve health and wellness, and reduce costs to the health care system. Research shows that adults and children who choose a family physician as their regular source of care have lower annual health care costs, visit the doctor less, are prescribed fewer medications and report less difficulty accessing care.

“Having a primary care provider like a family medicine physician is crucial to maintaining health,” said Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian MDHHS chief medical executive. “Visiting your primary care physician for regular check-ups can help you stay healthy and prevent illness, and they are a trusted source of accurate information about and providers of immunizations, including the COVID-19 vaccine.”

According to a Kaiser Family Foundation survey, eight out of 10 people are likely to rely on the advice of their personal primary care physician when deciding to get immunized. This makes family physicians key partners in Michigan families getting vaccinated against the seasonal flu, COVID-19 and other vaccine-preventable diseases that cause illness and death.

Statewide, the Michigan Academy of Family Physicians and Michigan Association of Osteopathic Family Physicians collectively represent more than 5,000 family physicians, family medicine resident physicians and medical students exploring a career in family medicine. Together they are hosting Michigan Family Medicine Advocacy Day in Lansing Wednesday, March 23, to discuss legislative and policy issues impacting access to care, the patient-physician relationship and the practice of family medicine in our state.

To learn more about Michigan Academy of Family Physicians, visit Mafp.com.

To learn more about Michigan Association of Osteopathic Family Physicians, visit Maofp.org.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 18, 2022

CONTACT: Bob Wheaton, 517-241-2112, WheatonB@michigan.gov 

Michigan’s Child Welfare Improvement Task Force to work with MDHHS to implement recommendations to address widespread racial disparities in state’s child protection system 

LANSING, Mich. – The Child Welfare Improvement Task Force today made recommendations to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) for preventing and eliminating systemic racism in the state’s child protection system.

Recommendations address issues such as children going into foster care because of the effects of poverty, youth who could live with family members instead being placed in non-relative foster homes, and children of color being a disproportionate percentage of those in congregate care facilities.

Visit michigancwtf.org to read the task force report.

“MDHHS believes the overrepresentation of children of color in the child welfare system requires fundamental systems change,” said Demetrius Starling, executive director of the department’s Children’s Services Agency. “Children of color enter foster care at higher rates and stay in care longer than their white peers. Children of color are also more likely to age out of care without finding a forever family. We must take action to address these challenges.”

MDHHS Director Elizabeth Hertel charged the task force with working with Starling and his Children’s Services Agency team in developing recommendations to the department. While 31% of Michigan’s children are people of color, they make up 51% of its foster care population.

The task force is chaired by Thomas Stallworth, senior advisor to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and director of the Michigan Coronavirus Task Force on Racial Disparities, and co-chaired by David Sanders, executive vice president of Systems Improvement at Casey Family Programs, which is nationally renowned for its work to improve outcomes for youth involved in the child welfare system.

Six key recommendations are being presented to the task force today to address six problem statements identified as being related to over-representation of children of color in the foster care system in Michigan. The problem statements and recommendations for addressing them are:

1. Problem Statement: Families who have contact with child welfare and whose children are placed in care overwhelmingly experience poverty, housing instability and associated challenges. There is ample evidence that judgments of neglect are confounded with the effects of poverty.

Recommendation: Redefine abuse and neglect/physical neglect.

2. Problem Statement: There are disproportionalities in the extent to which communities of color are reported to and engaged with child welfare systems, placed in care and placed in more restrictive forms of care.

Recommendation: Implement new structured decision-making tools. These tools use clearly defined and consistently applied decision-making criteria.

3. Problem Statement: Children are entering foster care when they could be placed safely with relatives or fictive kin, which are nonrelatives such as family friends who have a significant relationship with children.

Recommendation: Increase specialized services and supports for relative and kinship caregivers.

4. Problem Statement: The disproportionate placement of children of color in care and in congregate care facilities known as child-caring institutions reflects a cross-systems phenomenon in which they experience more restrictive placements.

Recommendation: There is a need for early identification and appropriate intervention to avert crisis and placement. Increase access to mental health services for children and families.

5. Problem Statement: Children of color are disproportionately placed in child-caring institutions and have longer lengths of stay.

Recommendation: Implement appropriate services to reduce placements in child- caring institutions and length of stay.

6. Problem Statement: The Children’s Services Agency budget does not provide adequate resources to advance these two recommendations – increasing specialized services and supports for relative and kinship caregivers and implementing appropriate services to reduce placements in child- caring institutions and length of stay.

Recommendation: Secure funding to implement the recommendations.

MDHHS has acknowledged the disparate treatment of Black children and families as barriers to achieving that goal and has identified specific strategies to address this challenge.

Stallworth agreed. “A concentrated effort was needed to identify the root causes of system disparities, eliminate any implicit bias and redesign a process that currently represents another prison pipeline for children of color,” he said. “The department and task force members should be applauded for their courage and commitment to achieving better outcomes for children and families.”

After listening to youth, families, staff and key stakeholders, the task force identified the six recommendations to address problems that are contributing to racial and ethnic disparities:

The task force is developing an implementation plan for each of the main recommendations to help meet their goals of supporting MDHHS to improve the child protection system to provide safe, fair and equitable treatment of all Michigan’s children and families.

The task force is being staffed by Paul Elam, chief strategy officer at the Michigan Public Health Institute, a Michigan-based, nonprofit public health institute leading public health efforts across the country.