Special thank you to Housing Headquarters

who graciously provided a donation to use our

parking lot for the Daytona 500 held in

February 2014. You are to be commended for helping our Moms and

Babies!

We would like to once again thank the Halifax

Health Center for Women’s & Infant

Health for providing space and lunch for our

Substance Exposed Newborn Taskforce

Committee meetings.

Thank you City of Deltona for providing space to create the Healthy Start Family

Place, located at 2345 Providence Blvd. in

Room #151, Deltona, FL. Healthy Start Family Place is open Fridays

from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. and can be reached by phone at (386) 561-

9628. A centralized access place for families

to come to and get linked to community

resources and services with computers available

for use.

THANK

YOU

Page 4

FIMR Fiscal Year 2014-2015 by Rosha Loach

We would like to thank our former FIMR CRT chair Pat Kruse for her many years of service and wish her the best of luck on her future endeavors! We welcome our new FIMR CRT chair Reverend John Long. The Flagler & Volusia Fetal and Infant Mortality Review Project (FIMR) is a collaborative community program to reduce infant mortality through an understanding of the fetal and infant deaths that occur in our 2-county area. Flagler & Volusia FIMR is one of 12 Fetal and Infant Mortality Review Projects in Florida contracted with and funded by The State Department of Health to conduct reviews. The FIMR project gathers information from birth and death certificates, hospital and provider medical records, law enforcement records, Medical Examiner reports, and family interviews on standardized abstraction forms, developed by the National Fetal and Infant Mortality Review Program. The Flagler & Volusia FIMR Nurse Abstractors summarize this abstracted information and

remove names of providers, patients, and facilities from the summaries, among other identifiers, in order to maintain confidentiality. These anonymous, de-identified summaries or cases are presented to a multidisciplinary team of professionals (Case Review Team) for review, conclusions, and recommendations. The purpose of the review is not to find fault but to discover patterns of contributing factors and develop strategies for system and community change. Please contact Rosha Loach, Healthy Start Program Manager/FIMR Coordinator at (386) 252-4277 or at rosha.loach@healthystartfv.org for more information.

Fiscal Year 2014-2015 FIMR Committee. Pictured left to right - back row standing: Nate Loucks

(Healthy Start), Reverend John Long (FIMR CRT chair), Gladys Roman (Healthy Start), Ann Bodziak

(Volusia Health Department), Mary Ann Ruddy (WIC), Laquisha Brown (Bethune-Cookman University

student), Ebony Thomas (Bethune-Cookman University student), Marcela Chiste, MD (Medical Ex-

aminer’s office), Ryan Ford (Bethune-Cookman University student). Pictured left to right - front row

seated: Megan Bagwell, MD (Halifax OB/GYN), Glynne Pascal (Early Learning Coalition), Jaquetta

Sorey (Bethune-Cookman University student), Bonnie Wittman (Halifax Health), Maria Long (QA

Manager), Rosha Loach (FIMR Coordinator), and Cher Philio (Healthy Communities).

Reverend John Long

Pat Kruse

Leadership Update by Dixie Morgese

Dear Community Partners,

This edition of our newsletter reflects some busy months for our

staff, service system, and Board of Directors. We have included

many highlights from our Annual Meeting in February and are so

grateful that so many of our partners could attend. During this

event, we had the opportunity to install new Board members and recognize those

Board members who have done such great work for our organization and the families

we serve. Our Blane O’Neill Board Service award went to Ms. Carly Meek.

We said good-bye to an icon in public health as we presented her with the Community

Service Award. Dr. Bonnie Sorensen, who retired this year from her role as Director of

Florida Health in Volusia County and as Board member of Healthy Start will be sorely

missed. All the best to you Bonnie!

Also included in this newsletter are some of our most recent activities related to our

Fetal and Infant Mortality Review (FIMR) Team. Thank you to all our volunteers who

painstakingly review fetal loss cases and infant death cases and deliberate to make

recommendations for change that can improve prenatal and infant health outcomes.

For those of you who are interested in our FIMR process, please visit the publications

section of our website and review our most recent publication of Project INFORM.

Sincerely, Dixie L. Morgese, Executive Director

Lions Club “Talk Over Tacos” by Corey Best

Healthy Start partnered with the Community Partnership for

Children and the Lions Club of Deland to host the first Café Talk

on the Westside of our beautiful County. The group was

comprised of Foster Parents, Law Enforcement, Guardian ad

Litem volunteers and Birth Parents.

The conversations were centered around the Strengthening

Families Protective Factors. Community and Parent Café is an evidenced based mechanism used to increase

Parental Resilience, Social Connections, Concrete Support in times of Need, Knowledge of Parenting and Child

Development, and Social Emotional Competence of Children.

The Café dialogue will be held the fourth Friday of every month from 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at 400 North Garfield

Deland, Fl. For more information call (386) 252-4277.

IN THIS ISSUE

Leadership Update

Lions Club “Talk Over

Tacos”

Healthy Start Funders

Healthy Start

Providers

Welcome New Staff!

Front Door Spruce Up

2015 Guardian Award

Data is Key to

Community Action

HS Welcomes New

Board Members &

Honors Long Standing

Members

Healthy Start Board of

Directors

FIMR FY14/15

Thank You!

Volume 9, Issue 2 October 2014—March 2015

Healthy Start Funders

Healthy Communities

Janet Elliott—FIMR Abstractor

Kandis Natoli—FIMR Abstractor

State of Florida, Dept. of Health, Flagler County

Health Dept.

State of Florida, Dept. of Health, Volusia County

Health Dept.

Stewart-Marchman-Act Behavioral Healthcare, Inc.

Healthy Start Providers

Oct. 2014—March 2015

Page 2

Tina Woods Receives Guardian Award at 2015 Annual Meeting by

Susan LeBlanc

Tina Woods was presented with a

Guardian Award at the Coalition’s

Annual Meeting on February 6, 2015.

Tina was a Parent Educator with the

Healthy Families program for almost

two (2) years prior to recently resigning

from her position in January 2015 for

personal reasons. During her time with

the Healthy Families program, she was

promoted from Parent Educator I to

Parent Educator II based on her ability

to consistently meet the stringent

performance objectives of the Healthy Families program. She established an excellent

rapport with the families she served and put their needs above all other matters.

Whenever she felt that she wasn’t connecting with a family as well as she expected, she

brought this to her supervisor’s attention in order to coordinate a positive transition to

another Parent Educator or to get feedback from her supervisor based on observations

during a home visit to establish a better connection with the family. Her ability to

recognize this and address it directly resulted in better retention of families which has

been a challenge for Healthy Families projects statewide. When Tina resigned from her

position, she offered to volunteer for Circle of Parents groups and other parent events.

Tina was instrumental in coordinating children’s activities during recent Circle of

Parents groups and based on the response from the children who attended these

events, her coordination of these activities was a huge success.

Welcome New Staff! by Katelyn Alley

Our Healthy Families Volusia~Flagler Project welcomes Alexis Nealy, Parent Educator. Healthy Families is a premier Home Visiting program that promotes positive parenting. The Healthy Families Volusia~Flagler program is administered by Healthy Families Florida and the Ounce of Prevention Fund of Florida.

Community Partnership for Children

Florida Department of Children and Families

Florida Department of Health

Healthy Families Florida

The Healthy Start MomCare Network

The House Next Door

United Way of Volusia & Flagler Counties

Volusia County, Children & Families Advisory Board

Front Door Spruce Up by Peggy Cage

Katelyn Alley, Healthy Start Operations

Manager, recently took over the management

of our administrative facility. One of her first

tasks was sprucing up the front entrance into

the building. Great job, Katelyn!

Healthy Start

Board of Directors Data is Key to Community Action! by Dixie Morgese

We are pleased to announce our new Data Committee has been formed to translate findings and recommendations into Community Action. Healthy Start Coalition member Thomas Bryant III is our Chair Person for 2015-2016 and has a wealth of expertise to share.

Thomas Bryant III is currently the director of the Office of Informatics and Assessment

(OIA) at Florida Health in Volusia County. He came to Volusia County in 2013 with the

charge to inform the Volusia County community of their health status, provide health

data to facilitate healthy lifestyle choices and utilize data to assist health department

programs to improve upon their processes and services.

Mr. Bryant started his public health career in 2001 at the Duval County Health Department where he co-founded the Institute for Public Health Informatics and Research. In 2008, the Institute received the National Maternal and Child Health Effective Practice Award for their community health status reports. We are excited for Mr. Bryant , III to offer his expertise and leadership to help our efforts in improving our system of care for pregnant women, infants, and their families.

Page 3

Diane Smith

Volusia County School Board

Jennifer Morgan

Private Citizen

Eric Goire

Museum of Arts & Sciences

Alma Y. Dixon, EdD, MPH,

RN

Bethune-Cookman University

Amanda K. Hayes, AAMS

20/20 Financial Advicors

Bonnie Wittman

Halifax Center for Women &

Infants

Carly Meek, Esquire

The City of Ormond Beach

Staff Attorney

Chris Fulton, CIC

Brown & Brown, Inc.

Jessica Fox Sznapstajler

Daytona Beach

News-Journal

John Meyers, MD, FACOG

OB/GYN Health Center

Kassandra Blissett

Private Citizen

Katrina Bell

Daytona State College

Pastor Loverso Walker

Faith Temple C.O.G.I.C.

Michele Goeb-Burkett

Florida Hospital Memorial

Medical Center

Pamela Carbiener, MD

Halifax OB/GYN Associates

Patrick Johnson

Flagler County Health Dept.

Ray Salazar

United Way

Steven R. Forsyth

5/3 Bank

Suzette Cameron

Daytona State College

(Deltona Campus)

Zenesha Barkley, DNP, MSN,

RN, CNE

Bethune-Cookman University

Healthy Start Welcomes New Board Members and Honors Long Standing Members by Dixie Morgese

In February, the Healthy Start

Coalition welcomed Ms. Amanda

Hayes, Mr. Chris Fulton, and Ms.

Suzette Cameron to our 2015

Board of Directors. Ms. Hayes

and Mr. Fulton served on the Co-

alition’s Finance Committee pri-

or to being appointed to the Board at the February Annual Meeting. Ms. Cameron is

the Director of the Deltona Campus of Daytona State College.

At the 2015 Healthy Start Annual Meeting, many honorees received awards. Our

Board members who were recognized included Ms. Carly Meek, for the Blane O’Neal

Board Service Award and Dr. Bonnie Sorensen for Excellence in Community Service.

Tyler DeBoard with Brown and Brown Insurance of Florida, Inc. also joined our Finance

Committee in November 2014. Eric Goire is welcomed as our new Board Treasurer.

Above from left to right:

Amanda Hayes, Chris Ful-

ton, Suzette Cameron

Left: Thomas Bryant III,

Bonnie Sorensen, and Ron

Rondeau

Right: Diane Smith, Dixie

Morgese and Carly Meek