Agenda - 09-07-1999 - 9c - Laserfiche WebLink

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ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS Action Agenda Item No. g- ~, ACTION AGENDA ITEM ABSTRACT Meeting Date: September 7, 1999 SUBJECT: Accept Smart Start Grant for Orange County Community Awareness Project and Establish New Bilingual Community Awareness Coordinator Position DEPARTMENT: Health ATTACHMENT(S): Grant Application PUBLIC HEARING: (Y/N) No INFORMATION CONTACT: Rosemary L. Summers, Health Director TELEPHONE NUMBERS: - - ezt. 2412 Hillsborough 732-8181 Chapel Hill 968-4501 Durham 688-7331 Mebane 227-2031 PURPOSE: To accept Smart Start Grant for Orange County Community Awareness Project and to establish a new permanent time-limited Bilingual Community Awareness Coordinator Position BACKGROUND: The Orange County Partnership for Young Children sent out a request for proposals in early June for projects beginning in the fall of 1999. The deadline for submission was late June. This project will improve health awareness and health behaviors of families of young children by attempting to link them to services they need in the community. A particular focus will be on historically hard-to-reach families such as those preschoolers who remain at home with parents, relatives or unlicensed informal caregivers and on Spanish-speaking families with limited or no access to services. This project's activities will focus on ^ promoting families' knowledge of and access to well-child care, ^ age-appropriate immunizations, ^ nutrition, ^ child safety resources, ^ health insurance options and ^ age-appropriate screenings for nutrition, vision, hearing, dental health, and social and developmental milestones. The project is directly in support of the health department's other programs that serve children at- risk in the county, although the department has been unable to address the Hispanic population. This proposal is related to the Commissioner's goal of improving the county's responsiveness to the Hispanic/Latino population as well. While the project will contribute to the overall achievement of Healthy Carolinians goals in preventing child abuse and neglect and will be coordinated with that effort, this project is targeted at the preschool population and is separate from the positions that will be working on Healthy Carolinians.