Program will teach parents about dealing with child illnesses
Friday, June 27, 2008 12:01 AM PDT
By Barbara LaBoe
Printable version
E-mail this articleNot sure when to panic when your child is up crying half the night? Or when a cold warrants a call to the doctor?
A new Head Start/ECEAP program will help 400 local families with just such quandaries.
The local program is one of several across the state participating in a health literacy program for parents. It’s goal is to train parents how to best respond to their child’s illnesses and give them materials, including an easy-to-read reference book, to help make better decisions.
“What’s so exciting is this is going to affect the whole family, from babies to older children to even sharing with neighbors,” said Sandy Junker, director of the Lower Columbia College Head Start/Early Childhood Education Assistance Program. And, she added, the benefits extend far beyond the individual family.
The UCLA/Johnson & Johnson Health Care Institute began the program in 2002. Since then, researchers have found that visits to a hospital emergency department dropped 58 percent and visits to clinics dropped 42 percent as parents were able to treat their children at home. That’s not only better for the child, but helps improve access to health care for everyone.
There also was a $554 per family savings in Medicaid costs and parents saw a 42 percent drop in missed days of work while their children’s number of missed school days declined 29 percent.
“There’s a number of different goals, including empowering the parents and alleviating some of the strain on the emergency department,” said health nutrition specialist Carleen DeGallier.
The program’s companion book “What to do When your Child Gets Sick,” is written at a third-grade level for easy comprehension and is broken into chapters based on various childhood injuries and illnesses. It also includes guidelines about when to call a doctor or seek immediate help.
The book will be available in both English and Spanish. Instructions on how to properly take temperatures, help a choking child and preform CPR also are included, as are general safety tips.
Each family participating in the program this fall will receive the book and attend a dinner training session attended by local doctors and nurses. Incentive prizes also will be awarded to parents to encourage their participation and a graduation will be held in April. Some items, such as first aid kits, digital thermometer and child identification kits already have been donated. Organizers are looking for more donations and also need doctors and nurses to volunteer to attend the dinners.
Backed by Gov. Chris Gregoire, 16 Head Start programs across the state received funding for the health literacy program, Junker said. The programs are expected to train 6,800 families.
Locally, officials must train 200 families per year for two years. Officials already have 95 Head Start/ECEAP families signed up this year, so they don’t anticipate any problem reaching the goal. The local program receives the books and $15 per family — or $3,000 a year — from the UCLA-based Health Care Institute. Officials said they’ll rely on donations to cover the remaining costs. The health literacy sessions are only open to Head Start/ECEAP parents, but applications are being accepted now for that overall program.
Head Start/ECEAP services — including comprehensive preschool — are free to low-income families whose child will be 3 by Aug. 31 and children who have special needs. The Cowlitz County program serves the towns of Longview, Kelso, Castle Rock, Toutle and Kalama.
For information, or to sign up for the coming year’s programs, call (360) 442-2800.
country gal wrote on Jun 27, 2008 10:41 AM:
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LH wrote on Jun 27, 2008 2:53 PM:
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