Community Report
Phelps County Community Partnership
THE MISSION OF PHELPS COUNTY COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIP
The Phelps County Community Partnership (The Partnership) is a Caring Communities initiative that became an incorporated nonprofit organization in 1997. The Partnership mission is to promote awareness of community issues, facilitate systems reform, and work together with citizens and organizations to enhance or develop community resources to achieve better results for children, families and communities.
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE PARTNERSHIP IN PHELPS COUNTY
- 92% reported that the Phelps County Community Partnership plays an important
role in the community.
- 92% agreed that the Partnership helped them accomplish their goals.
- 75% reported that the Partnership does not duplicate services currently
available in the community.
- 75% reported that the Partnership makes their life/work easier.
WHO IS INVOLVED IN THE PARTNERSHIP? The Partnership defines its scope of services as the broad and all-inclusive community made up of all people living in Phelps County, including the geographic areas encompassed by the four Phelps County school districts: Phelps County R-III (Edgar Springs), Newburg, Rolla, and St. James. Phelps County is a rural community of 39,825 people who reside within its 673 square miles situated in South Central Missouri, at the northern entrance of the Ozark Mountains.
The Partnership Board of Directors believes that, in order to be effective in implementing Caring Communities, every citizen of Phelps County needs to be considered in planning and implementing services. Instead of focusing on a single school or school district, The Partnership Board decided that systems reform would work only when all community members participate. This change in focus means that Caring Communities dollars would not be used to supply direct services. Services provided by the Partnership would use other state, federal, foundation, and community dollars to strengthen existing services and coordinate the identification and development of new services.
COMMUNITY PRIORITIES
The goal of The Partnership’s systems reform initiative is to implement a process for planning, evaluating, and assessing needs that uses strategies consistent with current systems reform thinking that will lead to community awareness, engagement, ownership and action.
The Phelps County Community Partnership Board of Directors decided that to effectively make positive results possible for the community it would be necessary to narrow our focus. The Planning Committee of the Board examined county data and decided to ask focus groups in each community – including Edgar Springs, Newburg, Rolla, and St. James – to also review the data and decide what were the factors they were most concerned about in their community.
The community groups selected one benchmark on which to focus on based on available data, comments, and collective knowledge of the community members involved in each focus group. The benchmarks chosen by the community include:
1) Births to Teens
2) Child Abuse and Neglect
3) Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse
4) Child Poverty
Countywide action teams have been developed to address these benchmarks. Goals and objectives to measure progress have been established.
DOLLARS LEVERAGED BY CARING COMMUNITIES DOLLARS
Every Caring Communities dollar leveraged $5.58 for Phelps County. The total expenditure of Caring Communities dollars in Phelps County is $257 K – leveraged an additional $1.4 M in in-kind and other grant dollars.
PHELPS COUNTY COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIP BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Donna Adam, Director, Rolla Regional Center
Mike Brooks, Principal, Newburg High School
John Butz, City Administrator, Rolla
Richard Cravens, District Administrator, Probation and Parole
David Duncan, Director, Pathways Community Behavioral Healthcare, Inc.
Barbara Durnin, County Resource Specialist
Larry E. Ewing, Superintendent, Rolla Public Schools
Jim Fleming, Plant Manager, Tacony Manufacturing
Dave Menge, Christian Church, St. James
Helen McFarland, Pastor, St. James United Methodist Church
Kay McMurtrey, Superintendent, Phelps County R-III School
David Murphy, Director, Division of Family Services
Roger Nash, Superintendent, Newburg Public Schools
Patricia Rogers, Executive Director, Division of Workforce Development
David Ross, Chief Executive Officer, Phelps County Regional Medical Center
Mary Sheffield, Associate Circuit Judge
Dan Spore, Plant Manager, Briggs and Stratton Corporation
Joe Swearengen, Captain, Missouri State Highway Troop I
W. H. Thomas, Jr., Thomas, Birdsong, and Mills, PC
Lonnie Thompson, Superintendent, St. James Public Schools
Josephine P. Waltman, Director, Phelps County Health Department
Robert Wright, Supervisor, Workforce Development
