Film spotlights infant learning program successes in Mat-Su -- and potential cost of underfunding it

By Corinne Smith
Alaska Beacon

What you need to know:

• A new short film highlighting shows a week in the life of the staff at the Mat-Su Services for Children and Adults Inc. infant learning program which provides early intervention services for families and young children who are experiencing developmental delays.
• Under current law, only children with at least a 50% developmental delay qualify for services, leaving out many who could benefit, like premature babies or those with subtler delays.
• Advocates are urging lawmakers to pass Senate Bill 178, which would lower the eligibility threshold to a 25% delay and reinstate access for certain at-risk infants.

JUNEAU – It was a pediatrician that first referred Laura Perez, now a mother of four, to an infant learning program in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough for her first son, who at almost 2 years old was showing some signs of developmental delays.

“It was more subtle with my oldest, but as it turned out, he was autistic, but he’s smart as a whip,” she said. Not only was Perez able to receive support from a developmental specialist for him, but also to enroll his next three siblings at earlier ages, in the following years. 

“They caught some of the social, emotional issues my oldest was having, and they caught some physical issues that with my second child, he’s got wonky ankles, which was, causing him to be a lot more clumsy. And … you know, I’m not a medical person,” she said. “It’s done so much good. It helped catch so much more, so much faster, and the faster you can intervene, the better the outcomes are.”

Infant learning programs provide early intervention services for families and children, from infancy to age 3, who are experiencing developmental delays. Interventions can include play and movement therapies, as well as language stimulation techniques, for children. In addition, parents can receive education and training on child development. 

An estimated 1,800 Alaskan families are served each year by 17 infant learning programs across the state, funded by the state of Alaska and federal Medicaid, at no cost to families. 

Perez and her family received support with speech, physical and occupational therapies. She said her second child is now an active prekindergartner at Big Lake Elementary. “He’s doing math! He’s throwing multiplication at us,” she said, laughing. “I’m like, you just turned 5, sir.”

Perez joined a group of advocates in Juneau to meet with legislators and attend the debut of a new short film that shows a week in the life of the staff at the Mat-Su Services for Children and Adults Inc. infant learning program. 

The April 29 screening drew a large crowd to the Gold Town Theater, including over a dozen lawmakers from Anchorage and the Mat-Su regions. Advocates are urging legislators to pass Senate Bill 178, to expand eligibility, and increase state general funds for these programs.

The film was made by filmmaker Joshua Albeza Branstetter and advocate, writer and executive producer Laura Norton-Cruz.

The film follows Yulia Smith, a developmental specialist making house calls in Mat-Su, sitting on floors with toddlers, and talking with mothers rocking infants. She discusses successes of early interventions, and ongoing challenges for the infant learning program.

“Really, the beauty of this work is we get to influence the life of a child in the very first few years of their life,” Smith said. “There’s so much we can do with early intervention to influence that further life of a child. … And it all starts from when you’re born, really.”

Smith herself became a developmental specialist after receiving services from the Mat-Su program for her son, who was later diagnosed with autism. She wanted to become one of the specialists and supporters for families like hers. “Because I had never known what autism was until then. And I was growing through quite a grieving process, in terms of what does that mean for my son and my family,” she said. “Now looking back, I needed her as much as my son needed her. And I wanted to do that for other families.”

Under current state law, infants and toddlers must show a 50% delay to be eligible for infant learning programs. Smith describes how that forces the Mat-Su program to turn families away, telling them to come back in six months for reevaluation, sensitive weeks and months in a child’s brain development. 

Under the new proposed legislation, eligibility would be changed to a 25% delay, so that more children and families would be eligible for these types of interventions. 

Norton-Cruz, who is also a social worker, produced the film, which was funded by the Mat-Su Health Foundation. She said expanding eligibility would open services to families. It would also reinstate eligibility for babies born prematurely or with low birth weight, after the state changed the guidance to remove them last year. 

“I witnessed that when we were filming. They went and visited a child in foster care who had been exposed to alcohol prenatally,” Norton-Cruz said, and he did not meet the 50% delay eligibility requirement at 1 year old. “So he had to be un-enrolled from the services, despite the services having made a really significant difference in his first 12 months, because he had been enrolled out of the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit). So they helped him, and then they had to let him go. And a lot of those families who get un-enrolled come back, and they come back with more significant delays.”

The film also shows staff grappling with heavy case loads, back-to-back home visits, and discussion of the growing demand from families, as the Mat-Su has the fastest growing population in the state.

Advocates and families are urging lawmakers to increase state funding for infant learning programs, which is funded through the Alaska Department of Health at $7.4 million in state funding last year.  

“It hasn’t been increased in 11 years,” Norton-Cruz said. “So the amount that the state provides has stayed the same, while costs have gone up. … In rural regions, airplane costs have gone up. Health insurance costs have gotten up. And the funding has remained flat.”

This year, the Alaska House added $5.7 million to early intervention and infant learning programs, but that addition was deleted by the Senate Finance Committee in its version of the operating budget. Committee leaders have said they are aiming to constrain spending in preparation for several financial challenges they expect the state to face over the next year. 

Norton-Cruz said an increase to infant learning programs would be an essential investment that legislators should fight for this year on a final budget vote. 

“If they continue to flat fund, it is a divestment, right, especially as federal funds disappear,” she said. “(It) is a divestment from children. And if you divest from children, things will get worse. Children will have worse outcomes in childhood, in adolescence and in adulthood, and that will be expensive … quality of life gets worse,” she added. 

She said these interventions also help reduce the costs and children’s need for services later in life, including hospitalizations and special education services in school.

In the final weeks of the legislative session, advocates are hoping to gather support for SB 178 to expand eligibility for children, which is currently being heard in the Senate Health and Social Services Committee.

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