Pediatrics Northwest in Pierce County, WA

Pediatrics Supporting Parents Proof Point Community: Pierce County, WA

Pediatrics Northwest

This Proof Point Community is redesigning pediatric primary care to reflect the realities of families’ lives.

About

Pierce County First Year Families is proud to demonstrate that family-partnered, team-based pediatric care is not only possible but practical and scalable.

Based at Pediatrics Northwest in Tacoma and partnering closely with the Washington Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the team serves about 45,000 families through a model that integrates family partnership, early relational health, behavioral health, and Community Health Workers into everyday care.

What sets our work apart is the depth of co-creation: parents hold leadership roles, workflows are redesigned with family input, and learning collaboratives connect clinics across the state to reduce isolation and share practical solutions. By pairing relational, upstream care with policy advocacy and scalable infrastructure, Pierce County First Year Families shows that family-centered, team-based pediatric care is not aspirational but achievable, sustainable, and ready to be replicated.

Learn more in Pierce County’s explainer video.

Innovations

Pierce County used Pediatrics Supporting Parents (PSP) funds and other support to co-create and test ways to enhance early relational health (ERH) within the pediatric setting. View these innovative approaches:

Family Partnership in Pediatric Primary Care

This innovation placed parents and caregivers at the center of care design. Families are now co-creators of policies, workflows, and quality improvement efforts. Through leadership roles, lunch-and-learns, and family night events, parents help shape everything from perinatal mood screening to clinic communication. This approach builds trust, centers lived experience, and helps both families and clinicians feel seen and supported.

Learning Collaboratives

A shared learning structure was created across clinics so teams could connect, reflect, and learn from each other. These statewide sessions, led by Pediatrics Northwest and the Washington Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics (WCAAP), focus on early relational health, caregiver wellness, and integrated team-based care. Participants report feeling less isolated and more confident, with practical tools they can use to strengthen family relationships and reduce burnout.

Embedding Community Health Workers

Community health workers (CHWs) became a key part of the care team, walking alongside families to address social health needs. Modeled on accompaniment, CHWs help families navigate housing, food, and behavioral health resources while offering emotional support. Their work bridges systems, reduces missed appointments, and allows clinicians to focus on medical and relational care.

Family Partnership and Co-creation

We have learned that meaningful partnership between parents and pediatrics requires moving beyond listening to families toward trusting them as co-designers and leaders.

At our PPC, partnering with families means parents are embedded in governance, care transformation, and learning processes from the start, shaping policies, workflows, and screening practices alongside clinicians and staff. What is different about this work is the depth and accountability of partnership: family input is not advisory or episodic, but ongoing, compensated, and directly tied to decisions and implementation.

Engaging families in this way matters because families are experts in their children’s lives and are often the first to identify barriers, stressors, and solutions that systems overlook. When families help design care, trust increases, care becomes more responsive, provider burnout decreases, and outcomes improve for children and parents alike.

Shayla Collins

Family Leader

“Family partnership is not about being invited to comment after decisions are made. It is about being trusted as a leader from the beginning. When families are truly included, care becomes more human, more effective, and more sustainable for everyone.”

Strategies for Making the Case for Family Partnership and Co-creation

Co-creation Definition

Co-creation is a relational and community-driven process, rooted in a sense of shared ownership and mutual respect.

Family Partnership Structure

Pierce County’s family partnership work is focused on co-created workflows and processes at the medical home and beyond. They are implemented community-based family partnering and host quarterly family nights and smaller ad hoc groups in between.

Reimbursement Structure

The Family Leader on the Governance Body received $125 an hour for governance-related activities and $50 an hour for community-based work. Family Leaders also receive stipends for planning and attending family nights.

Making the Case

We have shifted to strengths-based, family-centered practices with new ERH and SDOH screening tools shaped by family input. Feedback has improved missed appointment policies, strengthened data capacity, and supported efforts to secure stable funding for family engagement, including family leader compensation and Family Nights. We are also exploring co-presenting with family partners, embedding them on key committees, and sharing research on the value of family partnership.

Sustaining Our Efforts

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We are seeking a coalition of support to scale our integrated Community Support Worker (CHW) initiative, which both improves pediatrician capacity and positively shifts families’ trajectories.

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John Doe