Greetings to Our Community Partners and Friends!
We are pleased to present our 2007-2008 Annual Report. The accomplishments and strides we have made would never have been possible without the solid and diverse dedication of our Coalition, Board of Directors, donors, volunteers, staff, and amazing service providers.
As you will see as you review this publication, our Healthy Start, Healthy Families, and MomCare programs increased services to our community in unprecedented proportions. Our prenatal and infant screening rates both increased over 20% and our Healthy Start care coordination services increased 151% . The number of families receiving the most intensive services practically doubled, and wraparound services also experienced a significant increase of 113%.
Our Healthy Families program served 438 local at risk families with intensive home visiting services aimed at preventing child maltreatment. 100% of families who completed services had no incidence of maltreatment within twelve months of program completion.
Even with increases in services and performance, we are only able to meet 50% of the need in our community. As budget cuts threaten these services, our focus must be clear and our position must be unwavering. Services for pregnant women and babies save money and protect our future’s greatest commodity – our children.
The challenges that lay ahead will require us to be diligent, unified, and vocal. Despite economic pressures, our policy-makers need to hear from all of us. We must tell them not to be penny-wise and dollar foolish. Low birth weight babies and abused children take a human toll on the family that we cannot measure. The economic toll is equally as great. In Florida in 2007, 4,602 babies were born low birth weight or very low birth weight to women who could not access prenatal care in their first trimester. At the rate of $2,000 per day in neonatal intensive care, ONE DAY for these babies cost Floridians $9,240,000.00. This does not include medications or physician costs. These costs are largely preventable.
I look forward to joining all of you in continuing to serve our mothers, fathers, babies, and families in 2008-2009. I confidently can state that the collaboration and solution-building capacity in Volusia and Flagler Counties is second to none!
Sincerely,
Dixie L. Morgese
Executive Director
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