The Garden City Telegram
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Center to focus on healthy families
Published 8/27/2008 in News : Area coverage
By EMILY BEHLMANNebehlmann@gctelegram.com
A grant from the Catholic Health Initiatives ministry is helping the Finney County Community Health Coalition establish a center in Garden City with resources including parenting classes, diabetes education and life skills training.
The $200,985 grant will go toward a Center for Children and Families, expected to open in November, according to coalition leader Kevin Gallagher, the vice president of mission and ministry for St. Catherine Hospital. The grant will be paid over two years from the Catholic Health Initiatives’ Mission and Ministry Fund.
The coalition, which has been in place for about eight years, is made up of health, social service, education, community and other agencies that serve Finney County.
Gallagher said the center is planned for the second floor of a St. Catherine-owned office building at 310 E. Walnut St. The hospital is expected to retain ownership of the suite and provide it rent-free for the center, he said.
Janice Thome, a health coalition member from the Dominican Sisters Ministry of Presence, said the center is intended to provide “services for children and families that were unavailable elsewhere or are better done in a neutral setting.”
Possible services include life skills education for youth aging out of the foster care system, diabetes education, parent group meetings and parenting classes, and a physical location for the Finney County Help Desk, a community resource guide developed by the coalition that currently only operates online, Thome said.
Some of the services, like parenting classes and the United Methodist Mexican-American Ministries diabetes education program, already are provided by coalition members, but Gallagher said the coalition hopes centralizing them will make them more widely known and more easily available.
“There may be a lot of needs, and some may not know about (the services),” he said.
The idea to start the center followed an assessment of community needs conducted by the health coalition several years ago, Gallagher said.
He said the assessment indicated needs including public transportation, help with smoking cessation, prevention of at-risk behavior among youth and parenting education.
The Center for Children and Families would focus especially on parenting education, but also would connect community members to other resources, he said.
Before the center can open, coalition members have some work to do on the facility — likely with the help of community volunteers.
At a meeting Tuesday afternoon, coalition members planned to order carpet and discussed the idea of finding access to a kitchen outside the building, to be used for life skills classes.
The coalition also is working on a job description for a staff member who would run the center. Gallagher said the grant includes one salaried position for three years.
Catholic Health Initiatives is a nonprofit health organization based in Denver that encompasses 77 hospitals — including St. Catherine — 40 long-term care centers and two community health-services organizations. According to the organization’s Web site, grants from the Mission and Ministry Fund are available for planning, development and implementation of new initiatives to promote healthy communities.
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