Dr. Sarah Stelzner is an academic pediatrician, and the focus of her career has been developing programs in Community Pediatrics and promoting team-based care in the medical home model.
She is currently the lead faculty in the Our Kids Our Community Advanced Training which was established in 2017 to improve health outcomes of children and youth served by Eskenazi Medical Group (EMG) and now other Pediatric Urban Teaching Clinicians through partnership with their medical groups.
Dr. Stelzner is the Physician Lead for the Addressing Social Health and Early Childhood Wellness (ASHEW) program for the Indiana Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. She cares for patients and families and teaches medical students and residents in the International Marketplace neighborhood in a Federally Qualified Health Center (Eskenazi W. 38th st). Finally, she served as co-president of the Indiana Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics and is currently INAAP Legislative Chairperson.
[00:01] Dr. Sarah Stelzner Shares Her Story With Us
- I introduce and welcome Dr. Sarah Stelzner
- The mentors who’ve helped Sarah in her career
[05:03] Early Childhood Wellness
- Sarah talks about the project, “Addressing Social Health and Early Childhood Wellness” (ASHEW)
- Mitigating the harmful impacts of toxic stress and nurturing human relationships
- How promising is the ASHEW Initiative and what is its potential to contribute in relational health?
[16:38] Survey of Well-being of Young Children
- What you should know about the Survey of Well-being of Young Children (SWYC)
- The features of SWYC that families and patients need to know
- Does SWYC have any limitations?
- What to do when positive screens appear
- Sarah talks about the Help Me Grow National Center
[26:44] Mobilizing Family Leaders
- What families should know about Aunt Bertha
- How we can integrate community health worker models in our approach
- The power of mobilizing family leaders
- Sarah gives us a few tips to improve the language we used with patients
[36:14] Building Relationships and Identifying Strengths of Family and Community
- How pediatricians can join these advocacy groups
- Don’t miss Sarah’s message for her resident self
- Pediatricians need healing too
- Sarah explains
- There have been promising improvements in the relational health space
- Listen to our exchange
[42:27] Closing Segment
- Final takeaways:
- Relational health as a strengths-based model
- Sarah’s body of work and its connection with the 2021 AAP Policy Statement on Relational Health
- Learning collaborative models
- Engaging family at the beginning of a treatment
- Screening tools available right now
- How to sustain our work
- Explore resources in your state
- The EBCD resources
- Mobilizing family and community leaders
- Closed loop referrals
- How to ensure that the support provided is what the patient wants
- The ASHEW Initiative
- Keep looking or finding and rejoicing in the magic moments that we have with children and families
Key Quotes:
“…if we can help kids have those positive childhood events, it mitigates what they might be experiencing in terms of social drivers that have negative impacts.” – Dr. Sarah Stelzner
“Step back from trying to fix things and focus on building relationships and understanding the family and community strengths.” – Dr. Sarah Stelzner
Email [email protected] to reach out to Sarah or check out https://www.iu.edu/index.html to know more about her work.
Resources Mentioned:
- Addressing Social Health and Early Childhood Wellness (ASHEW)
- AAP Policy Statements
- Preventing Childhood Toxic Stress
- Trauma-Informed Care in Child Health Systems
- The First 1,000 Days: Bright Futures Examples for Promoting EBCD
- The AAP STAR Center Practice Transformation Roadmap and Change Package
- AAP Screening Tool Finder
- Protective Factors Framework from CSSP
- Poverty and Child Health in the United States
- Help Me Grow National Center
- Indiana Chapter: American Academy of Pediatrics
- Pediatric Meltdown Episode 56: Toxic Stress: Safe, Stable, Nurturing Relationships are the Antidote
- Michigan Child Collaborative Care
- Aunt Bertha
If you’d like to connect with me, you can find me on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter or email me at [email protected]. To learn more about me visit https://www.medicalbhs.com/
LOVE WHAT YOU HEARD? Leave us a 5-star review so we can continue to provide you with great content. Share this episode and help people know more about children’s health and well-being.
