SNJPC: Healthy Start - A Closer Look at the Four Models

A Closer Look at the Four Models

Model: Adolescent Services

Develop and implement a School Based Youth Services Program at East Camden Middle School designed to reduce the teen pregnancy rate by providing information and activities for both males and females. The information and activities encourage healthy behaviors, improve self-esteem, promote abstinence and help adolescents understand the challenges of parenting.

Establish a coordinated adolescent parenting/child care program at Woodrow Wilson High School to help teen parents stay in school and increase their capacity as healthy parents.

Allow 30 first-time adolescent mothers in East Camden to participate in Healthy Families - an existing program offering intensive, home visitation services to promote healthy child development.

Make available the childhood literacy program Reach Out and Read to all Healthy Families participants.

Contribute to the expansion of existing youth programs designed to build self-esteem and create recreational alternatives for pre teens and adolescents.

Model: Risk Reduction/Substance Abuse Area

Establish an organized and seamless system of care for substance abusing pregnant women through new programs and expansion of existing services. Components include:

an information and referral teratology hotline;
standardized data collection;
screening and assessment tools for all prenatal sites;
risk reduction counseling;
intensive outpatient treatment and transportation services for women.

Provide a comprehensive substance abuse prevention initiative for Camden City neighborhoods of Centerville and Morgan Village.

Model: Outreach

Increase by 12 the number of outreach workers serving Camden. Outreach Workers - all of who are recruited from service neighborhoods - help pregnant women obtain prenatal care and other health and social services. These new workers join the existing five-member outreach team.

Implement an incentive plan in conjunction with Camden's prenatal clinics that encourages women to seek appropriate prenatal care throughout their entire pregnancy and post-partum and infant care until the child reaches one year.

Open three new outreach offices in North Camden, East Camden and Parkside.

Put into service a special van - the Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition of Camden City Baby Cruiser - to help Outreach staff canvass neighborhoods for women who need their services.

Model: Consortium (or Coalition) Building

Actively recruit Camden City residents for membership in the HMHB Coalition so they can play an equal role in decision-making regarding the direction of the Coalition. Consumer members will not only help assess the needs of the community, but will also help develop programs that address their unique community-driven needs.

Establish four Neighborhood Advisory Councils at each outreach site to better integrate community involvement in service delivery, needs identification and evaluation.