Meeting Proceedings: Children and Youth with Special Health Care Needs (CYSHCN) Summit Series

In 2020, HRSA convened families, providers, researchers, government staff, non-profit organization staff, and other individuals who work on behalf of children and youth with special health care needs and their families across the country for a Children and Youth with Special Health Care Needs (CYSHCN) Summit Series.

The overarching goal of the Summit Series was for participants to build on HRSA’s Blueprint for Change, a national framework for a system of services for children and youth with special health care needs. Participants identified actionable goals and objectives at the community, state, and federal levels to provide strategic guidance to the field over the next 15 years and improve systems of care for these children and youth.

These proceedings provide a summary of the key activities, discussion, and recommendations from the Summit Series. In Chapter II, we present the four topic areas discussed during the Summit Series: (1) health equity, (2) family and child well-being and quality of life, (3) access to services and supports, and (4) financing of services. We also summarize participants’ recommendations for the Blueprint in each of the topic areas. In Chapter III, we highlight participants’ cross-cutting recommendations that apply to more than one topic area.

These proceedings include five appendices: Appendix A provides the topic area definitions, goals, and objectives; Appendix B provides a list of CYSHCN Summit steering committee members; Appendix C includes lists of Summit Series participants; Appendix D includes the Summit Series session agendas; and Appendix E provides greater detail about each participant recommendation and whether it was made by one or multiple Summit participants.