All Illinois families of children with special healthcare needs are welcome to share their feedback and experiences at this virtual forum.

Join us for an opportunity to connect with other families and share your feedback on topics that matter to you. 

Our next Family Advisory Council (FAC) open forum is on Nov. 14 from 9 to 11 a.m. 

This free virtual meeting is for all Illinois families of children with special healthcare needs. You do not have to be a Division of Specialized Care for Children (DSCC) participant to attend. 

Visit our open forum event page for the link to join the meeting. Please note that live Spanish translation will be available during the open forum.

The FAC guides our efforts to strengthen teamwork, improve communication and empower families to have a voice in their children’s care. The council also connects families to resources and other families who are on a similar journey. 

Our FAC has played an important role in developing:

• Our new DSCC Family Portal to help families more easily communicate and share information with their DSCC care coordination team
• New “All About Me” Page templates to help providers, care coordination teams, schools and other caregivers understand the likes, strengths and needs of each child beyond their medical diagnosis
• A free, virtual Health Insurance Education Series to help families navigate the insurance maze and better understand their coverage and benefits
• Improvements to our family survey process, including reducing the number of surveys that families receive 
• Updates to our online Resource Directory and more

You can find the minutes from past meetings and more details on our website’s Family Advisory Council page.  

If you have questions or would like more details on how to participate in the FAC, please email dsccfac@uic.edu.

We hope to see you on Nov. 14!

Our annual family survey is an easy way to share your feedback and make a direct impact.

Our participant families are important to us, and your feedback matters.

On Feb. 15, all Division of Specialized Care for Children (DSCC) participants will receive our annual family survey.

This survey asks how well our team members support your family and meet your needs. It also asks about:

• Your contact preferences
• How and when you’d like to meet with our team
• How well our staff communicates with you

You will receive this survey either by email or mail, based on your preferences. If you respond, you will have a chance to win a $50 Visa gift card.*

Your responses will help us strengthen your services. They also guide updates to our DSCC policies and procedures that affect your family.

Our surveys are optional, but we strongly encourage you to share your experiences. We want to ensure we’re doing all we can to help you meet your family’s needs and achieve your goals.

* Please note: Foreign national nonresident aliens are not eligible for the gift card participation prize.

How Your Feedback Makes a Difference

Listening to our participant families is a priority. Your ideas and concerns have helped strengthen our services and guide improvement projects.

Here’s an overview of how the 2023 survey input and overall family feedback made a difference at DSCC:

• Our authorizations are now easier to fill out and keep up to date. We updated the form authorizing us to share information with multiple providers, meaning only one signature on one form.
  
• Our online resource library is now searchable. Families shared their need for more resources. In response, we updated our online Resource Directory and Events page to add search features. This improvement should help all Illinois families of children and youth with special healthcare needs find and share resources more easily.

• We resumed face-to-face visits. Our care coordination teams resumed face-to-face visits with families following the end of the public health emergency on May 11, 2023. Meeting in person should further improve our connection and engagement with families.

• We created a new Family Portal. In October 2023, DSCC introduced a new Family Portal to better connect families with their care teams. The portal gives participant families one place to communicate with their care coordination teams, sign documents and access information.

• We created “All About Me” Pages to help others get to know your child. DSCC developed “All About Me” Pages so families can highlight their child’s strengths, medical needs and more. Families can personalize the templates to best fit their child’s personality. You can share these templates with medical providers, schools, other caregivers and so on. These pages should make it easier to share what works best for your child, what they like and dislike, and their medical needs. These templates are available on our website’s “All About Me” Pages section.

• We’ve partnered to improve nursing availability throughout the state. Nursing agencies that work with DSCC can now receive a license to work across the state. We partnered with the Illinois Department of Public Health to make this change. The new license process offers more opportunities for nursing coverage for families of children and adults with complex medical needs. DSCC is also developing NurseNet. This interactive website will allow families looking for nursing to connect with nursing agencies.

Please be on the lookout for our annual survey on Feb. 15.

If you have questions or need more information, please contact your Care Coordinator.

We appreciate your partnership and look forward to hearing from you!