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Local Teams Resources

CFPS An Introduction to the System
The CFPS Operations Manual has been updated and is available for download!
Keep in mind that this is a working document that may change over time. Regardless of future changes, you will always be able to find the latest version of the manual here:

CFPS Manual cover

Download the manual


New Tear Out Pages! These pages have been created for easy access and use, so you don't have to flip through the manual to find what you need!


Please note the version date and discontinue using any older versions you may have saved. 

Meeting Facilitation

Listed here are tools to help facilitate your local child fatality review meetings.

 

Guidance Documents

 

 

Case Assignments and Data Entry

Please contact us if you have any questions about the case assignment process, data entry, how to answer a question on the National Center data collection website, or other general questions about the review process.

Helpful documents for case review and data entry

National Center For Fatality Review and Prevention Resources:

 

Data Entry Help:

 

By topic

 

Death Certificate FTP Website

  • Open in Google Chrome, and go to the death certificate FTP website.

  • Enter your State issued username followed by \secft2.dphe.state.co.us

    • For example, username\secft2.dphe.state.co.us

  • Enter your password (the long, crazy one). If you have access to other state applications, your password to this website will change when you change your password to them.

 

National Center for Fatality Review and Prevention Case Reporting System

 

Contact us if you get locked out of either of these websites!

The ultimate purpose of child fatality review is to keep kids alive. By understanding how and why

children die, our communities can take action to prevent other similar deaths. Local review teams should make sure that every child death that could have been prevented makes a difference in the lives of other children. The review of each child death concludes with a discussion of how to prevent another death in the community. Local teams can focus their discussion on short- and long-term interventions relating to policy, programs, and practice. Teams are not expected to design and implement recommendations; reviews are intended to catalyze community action. Teams should identify the best way to translate prevention recommendations into action. 

The key to good prevention is leadership at the local level. Local review team members can provide this leadership by serving as catalysts for community action. Prevention efforts can range from simply changing one agency practice or policy, to more complex interventions like intensive home visitation programs for high-risk parents.

Montage of young boy playing

Locals teams can utilize the CFPS Prevention Guidance to develop prevention recommendations across the social ecological model. 

To assist local review teams with the development of these efforts, local, state, and national programs are available. Such programs address specific prevention needs for the health, safety and well‑being of children and families. Available in both the public and private sectors, these programs can be sponsored by religious, community, professional, and/or government organizations. Some are short‑term projects with temporary funding; others are established programs with documented results and proven track records.

Individual agencies or local review team members can assume responsibility to work with existing or new prevention coalitions to enact change. Some communities have child safety coalitions, prevention coalitions or active citizen advocacy groups. Connect your local review team findings with these community groups to ensure results. In addition, assist these groups in accessing state and national resources in the prevention areas targeted by your community.

A short list of prevention categories include:

  • Safe Infant Sleep

  • Teen Pregnancy Prevention

  • Suicide Prevention and Counseling

  • Firearm Safety

  • Crime Victims' Assistance

  • Gang Prevention and Intervention

  • Substance Abuse Counseling and Education

  • Drowning Prevention

  • Child Car Seat Safety

  • Teen Driving Safety

  • Bicycle Safety

  • Fire Safety

  • Prenatal Care

  • Parenting Skills

  • Infant and Child Day Care Programs

  • Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention Programs

  • Poison Control

  • Consumer Product Safety 


Focusing on prevention is how your team will find meaning and purpose over the long haul.  The CFPS support staff developed tools using the public health framework for prevention to help you identify preventive action that can be taken at all levels of the social ecology.  These tools will lead you through the process of formulating effective recommendations, identifying key individuals, and following up on recommendations for preventive action.  Prevention tools may be found under the “Prevention Efforts” tab.

The reviews can lead to many initiatives, some involving short-term, easy-to-fix problems and others requiring long-term, extensive planning efforts. However, due to the small number of deaths in many rural counties, important trends may not be apparent to the local teams, and only become evident when statewide data are compiled by CFPS support staff. The CFPS State Review Team will develop recommendations for legislation, administrative agency policy and practice, and public education based on the collective experiences and recommendations from local review teams. On an annual basis, the CFPS State Review Team will develop a report of policy and systems-level recommendations for the Colorado General Assembly.

As part of the funding available to develop and implement local child fatality review teams, there is funding available to implement prevention strategies based on the recommendations from local child fatality review team discussions. CFPS support staff and local child fatality review teams will work collaboratively to analyze data trends and patterns, interpret the data, select evidence-based prevention strategies, and implement community-based prevention strategies.

Do you have prevention efforts that you'd like to update us on? Go to the Prevention Tracking page to fill out a quick form.

Prevention Tracking Form

Hi there! Take a few minutes to update us on your prevention efforts...

 

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CFPS Training and Events

Please note that some of the trainings and events listed on this calendar are county specific. If you would like to host a training in your county, please contact CFPS staff to ask for more information.

 

CFPS Records Requesting Webinar

Download this video

Map of Local Child Fatality Review and Prevention Teams

Local public health agencies may work together to establish regional review teams. Local public health agencies may designate another lead agency to facilitate the review process. All local review teams must form by January 1, 2015.

Guidance

The CFPS State Review Team and support staff have developed a Colorado-specific operations manual to guide local review teams through the child fatality review process. Guidance includes:

  • Forming Teams;

  • Case Selection;

  • Records Requests;

  • Case Abstraction;

  • Conducting Case Review Meetings;

  • Requesting Data Analysis Support from CDPHE;

  • Secured Record Keeping;

  • Generating Prevention Recommendations;

  • Responding to the Media; and

  • Program Evaluation.

Trainings

2015 Child Fatality Prevention Training for Local Team Coordinators

Per recent legislative update, the following are a list of duties assigned to local review teams:

  • At minimum local/regional teams must include representatives from the following agencies: local public health, county human services, local law enforcement agencies, district attorney’s office, school districts, and county coroner’s office. Representatives from other entities or groups can also be invited to participate in the local team.

  • Local/regional teams will be responsible for conducting case-specific, multidisciplinary reviews of all child deaths (ages 0-17) that occurred in the jurisdiction of the local and regional review team. CDPHE will identify child deaths that occur in each local/regional team jurisdiction and provide death certificate information to team coordinators via a secure portal.

  • The number of cases each local or regional team would be responsible for reviewing depends on the number of deaths that occur in that catchment area each year. It is possible that some local teams would not have cases to review every year. Generally, the larger the population in the local/regional team jurisdiction, the more cases the local/regional team would review.

  • Teams can choose to review other types of deaths (e.g. cancer, other medical cause deaths).

  • Local teams will be responsible for gathering cases records from a variety of sources, including law enforcement, coroner records, hospital records and human service records. Local teams will be able to determine whether they request records ahead of time or whether they ask members of the team to bring records with them to team meetings.

  • Local/regional review teams will be required to use the national web-based data collection system to report case findings and identify recommendations for improvements to local policies and practices to prevent child deaths.

  • Local/regional review teams will use the comprehensive information collected about each death to identify risk factors and prevention opportunities in a systematic way.

  • At minimum, local/regional teams will review the following causes of child fatality: 1) undetermined causes; 2) unintentional injury (e.g. drowning, falls, fires); 3) violence (e.g. homicide, any firearm death); 4) motor vehicle incidents; 5) child abuse or neglect; 6) sudden unexpected infant death; and 7) suicide.

CFPS staff are available to consult or provide technical assistance to help local teams form. Please contact CFPS staff to ask for more information.