Healthier Kids

Perspectives: Research and Creative Activities at SIUC, Fall 2007

:: research survey ::

Healthier Kids

SIUC's Center for Rural Health and Social Service Development will use a recently awarded federal grant to help improve the health of children and adolescents in Southern Illinois.

The $428,560 grant, from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services through its Delta State Rural Development Network Grant Program, will enable the center to work with other local agencies to provide school-based programming in the southernmost 16 counties of Illinois. The grant is renewable for two more years pending federal funding.

As the designated grantee for Illinois, one of eight states that make up the Mississippi Delta Region, the center has received funding each of the last six years for a variety of programs to improve health care access in the Delta region. Working with 14 subcontractors, it has initiated or assisted with school-based health centers, supported-living programs, emergency medical services, and "healthy communities" coalitions.

With the current round of funding, says center director Tess Ford, the aim is to improve health and reduce obesity among Southern Illinois youngsters by increasing their physical activity and improving their nutrition. Ford is the project director and James Teufel is the project evaluator and grant writer.

The funding will allow for the expansion of physical activity and nutrition programs through the "Coordinated Approach to Child Health" (CATCH). All 105 elementary schools in the Illinois Delta Region will be eligible to participate in CATCH, and Ford expects that about 30 will do so by the end of the grant-funding period in 2010.

CATCH is a nationally recognized, community-based school program that worked well locally in its pilot stage, she says. Now, the program is expanding through a new model, "Catch on to Health," to 13 rural Southern Illinois schools this year. The center will work through the regional offices of education to recruit additional schools.

"Color Me Healthy," another component of the program, is aimed at preschool children. The Child Care Resource and Referral Center at John A. Logan College in Carterville will implement "Color Me Healthy" in local Head Start programs, Ford says.

The Center for Rural Health and Social Service Development will work with Southern Illinois Healthcare, the Southern Seven Health Department, and the Egyptian Public and Mental Health Department, partnering as the Illinois "Catch on to Health" Consortium.

The center also has received a $100,000 supplemental Innovation Grant to provide specialized mental health services for Southern Illinois children through Shawnee Health Service.

Most of the funding for these projects goes to the community subcontractors to provide the much-needed services. The center's primary role is developing, coordinating, and evaluating the projects and providing training and technical support.

"It's really the University reaching out to the community through community outreach and community development initiatives," Ford says.

—by Christi Mathis