“Having sufficient childcare when helping parents enroll is very important. It’s good to provide food there. Making it for the whole family is essential.”

Another way to reach families with potentially eligible children is to sponsor an enrollment event. These are activities specifically designed so that community members can meet directly with representatives of health insurance plans, CHIs or other qualified individuals to complete the application process and enroll their eligible children in affordable health insurance. If your agency is interested in offering an enrollment event, keep in mind that while enrollment events can provide families with much needed direct personal assistance, they are extremely resource-intensive in terms of staff time, planning, and execution.

It’s also important to recognize that it’s generally not a good idea to simply add an enrollment component to an existing community event, such as a health fair, holiday celebration or parade. However, as noted in Activity 2 and Activity 6, such events offer great opportunities to provide families with general information about children’s health insurance options.

There is one exception to the rule about not adding an enrollment component to an existing event — and that is when the families have been previously contacted and have appointments to complete the application process with a CAA attending the enrollment event. For example, one California city successfully added previously scheduled enrollment appointments as a feature of the grand opening celebration at a new community center. The main way to reach individuals at this event, however, was to offer information at tables staffed by the health plans. Interested families were able to ask questions and complete a referral card. The health plan staff then contacted the families after the event to start the application process.

Key Steps for Holding A Successful Enrollment Event

The basic elements of holding a successful enrollment event include the following key steps.

A. Identify the target audience for the event.

B. Invite health plans, non-profit groups and others who can assist with enrolling children to participate at the event.

C. Select a location and time that will be convenient to families.

D. Let families know about the event using different outreach methods.

E. Support logistics are important, both for families and enrollment representatives.

F. Make appointments for families to promote attendance and call with reminders two days before the event.

G. Collect information about families served.