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Prevention Works! Minutes |
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Clallam
County Prevention Works! Community Coalition Jane Shefler called the meeting to order. Everyone introduced themselves. The following people were in attendance: Ida Carroll, Irene Smith, Mary Jacoby, Barb Enos, Jim Borte, Gwen Cole, Rachel Anderson, Debra Sharp, Fernellyn Brown, Katherine McDaniel, Angie Graff, Yvette Cline, Susan Kirsch, Jennifer Charles, Ann Bell, Pam Arnott, Jane Shefler, Kris Johnson, Bill Jevne, Connie Hyatt, Norma Turner, Varina Breithaupt, and Cynthia Martin Jane talked about the format for the meeting. Cynthia spoke about the program for today and what it would cover. Kathryn McDaniel, the new person in charge of programs, talked first about the Maternity Support Services provided by First Steps. This group is not to be confused with First Step. This service is available to women up until the first two months after the birth but beginning at pregnancy. Under some circumstances services may go on as long as one year. They are now doing more in terms of maternity case management. Pam Arnott talked about New Family Services. The hospital also does home visiting as does the Health Department. They try to get into the home within 72 hours after woman gives birth. Their goal is to pick up problems and refer them to others. They have been in existence since 2000. This is the first attempt at universal home visiting. The evaluations have been positive and it is especially nice that they provide services to everyone. Few communities have programs like this. There is a lot of collaboration as part of this program. Now that the west end is doing something similar, the collaboration has certainly been there. The hospital stay itself is typically 24 hours—some less time. With C section they might be out in two days usually. This is the reason the programs such as New Family Services are so important. They also have child birth education and certain other classes for new parents. Barb Enos from Forks Community Hospital indicated that because the program was successful in Port Angeles, New Family Services wanted to extend it to the west end. The OB nurses are also the ones who will do the home visits and they will already have made a contact with the moms in the maternity ward and the relationship is already built. They have just started in this area. Fernellyn Brown talked about a federally mandated program which was set up as part of the polio epidemic a long time ago and was originally called Crippled Children’s Services. It now is for Children with Special Health Care Needs. They are looking at chronic or debilitating illnesses. It is usually for children on medical coupons. This is especially true for equipment. They also help people who have private services. She has been working on helping people understand who to call for help, where do they go and attempting to prevent the fragmenting of services provided for them. They help parents know what questions to ask of the next provider. They try to coordinate medical reports from hospitals or physicians to avoid problems. They are there to give support to the family. She has trouble herself accessing services so she knows other need help. The equipment is truly expensive and they are there to help. Call Fernellyn or have the family call her to understand ways to help them. Several questions were asked of the panel. B vaccines are now usually given in the hospital. They are ordered on a regular basis by most physicians. Second immunization usually occurs with the caregiver or the health department. The hospital still uses PKU test on the heel. Pam explained that two tests are usually done because sometimes the early screenings some problems don’t appear so doing a second one helps pick that up. Now they can do the second PKU in the home with New Family Services. WIC is a little different that Maternity Support Services. WIC is a broader basis than MSS—based on number of family members and income. There is a lot of nutrition information given to many families through WIC. Fernellyn says they do a nutrition assessment through their program. Susan Kirsch talked about the tribal programs. If a Latino mom comes to the hospital and doesn’t speak English they do attempt to keep some Spanish speaking people available but the staff is short. The hospital is also planning a second training program on working with the Latino population for this side of the county similar to what Shaine Schramling coordinated on the west end. This is through the federal health grant. Barb said they have interpreters but not certified through the state but they pay them to help with labor and delivery. Patsy Brown works through one of the health clinics that have two physicians who speak Spanish. They now have a Spanish child birth class. Two of the lactation classes are also in Spanish. Kathryn said the Health Department hires interpreters to help with the program. They don’t have to bear all the costs since there is some help on this. We still need more people who would be able to pass the interpreter test. Pam talked about a survey they did on breast feeding moms to obtain outcome data. Women surveyed in 1998 women gave 3 reasons for not continuing breast feeding: lack of information, lack of support, and the need to go back to work. They found that there was a 40% increase in the length of breast feeding since that time because of the support and information given through New Family Services. They didn’t change what was happening at the 3 month marker but she felt that there was a need to get greater community support behind them to achieve additional change. Pam said they were doing better in becoming self-sufficient financially. The Aaron Act was a law that said these kinds of services can be billed to insurance companies. This requires reimbursement for services for visits up to 21 days after the birth. This has made a difference in programs such as New Family Services being reimbursed. Business
Meeting Jane Shefler began the business part of the meeting. The minutes of the last meeting in June were approves. The financial report was given orally. We have $3730 in the CD and another $1308.63 in the checking account. Jane had a profit and loss statement to show what we have spent the money on this year. We earned more than we spent. Changes in the
Board: Over the summer we had some changes in the makeup of the Board of Prevention Works to Susan’s name. Jan Laine resigned from the board but Ida Carroll agreed to serve. The books are being done by Jane at this time. So we still have five people on the executive committee. Norma Turner agreed to be chair of the Strategic Planning Committee. Endorsements for Grants and for Speaking: Prevention Works! has a policy about endorsements for grants or events or programs. Purpose of the endorsements is to get the agreement of the board in backing the action being requested. You can find the request for endorsement on the website. If you plan on speaking about Prevention Works! it would be helpful to let the Prevention Works! board know what it is about. Committee
Reports: Big Event Planning Committee: Norma said the second meeting of this committee was cancelled for today until it could be decided what the group was planning. Jim Borte said they were looking at potential people to talk at the event but decided the goal should first be to pick what we wanted covered. Jane said there is some kind of consensus about what we are doing. We want to have a separate event with a Saturday Forum and workshops in the afternoon like we did a few years ago and maybe in the spring. Anyone interested in helping is welcome to attend. The next meeting hopefully will be telelinked. One of the possible issues to be discussed would be to talk about how do we change community norms. It is such a big topic and that is why the group agreed it needed further discussion. Angie talked about Terry Tofoya coming to several meetings in the area and it might work to include this event into this other one. It might work for him to be involved in some way with some group. OPAEYC will be on Saturday, March 1. The next meeting of the Big Event Committee will be Tuesday, October 1 or Thursday, October 3. Strategic Planning Committee: Norma Turner said there hasn’t been another meeting since we don’t know what the group wants us to do. So far she is organizing the policies. Connie Hyatt is also on the committee. Norma sent a thank you to the presenter, Jennifer for the meeting that discussed becoming a 501 (c) (3). Membership: Susan Kirsch said things have been quiet over the summer. She is working with Jim Borte. She brought up the fact that we don’t have a lot of community people attending meetings. Scheduling issues prevents some of this attendance. This is one of the reasons we have the big event. Their committee is looking at doing some outreach especially in the area of the Latino population and the tribes. Jennifer Charles has membership packets for anyone to distribute to potential members. Publicity: Jim Borte talked about getting the meetings in the newspaper correct session. KEYS: Cynthia announced that KEYS had had their first meeting of the year this week. They were continuing to look at literacy as their primary goal. They are just starting for the year. Announcements: Norma announced that a group which was very involved in pending legislation was forming in the Seattle area. So far it doesn’t have a name but it is trying to get the word out on legislation. Norma also announced that the Family Policy Council is meeting at the Red Lion in Port Angeles this coming month September 23-24. The Washington Council for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect is talking to Bruce Perry, one of the leading scientists in brain research. October 29 will have the Children’s Alliance in Yakima and will discuss affecting public policy. Early Head Start is taking applications in Sequim 683-3117 and Port Angeles 452-1721. You have to be receiving subsidized child care and meet the income guidelines.
Jim Borte said that all the state agencies needed to put priorities
in their budgets. Last year
there were high cuts but this year will be double that amount.
Each agency prioritized their services into high priority, medium
and low. All the last
priority items are on the cutting block.
Here is a short list of the lowest third of the DSHS budget: We all need to keep in touch with legislators. CHEF Grant:
CHEF’s (Comprehensive Health Education Foundation) grants were available to anyone at the meeting. Irene Smith indicated she will apply and will be asking for
an endorsement. |
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