Community Engagement
St. Francois County Community Partnership
Community Engagement
February 2002
Mission
To build, nurture, and strengthen families, insuring that every person has the opportunity to become a healthy, productive, and contributing member of the community by focusing on the six core results.
Strategies
Many tools have gone into making our Partnership an important part of our communities. Through the use of media, presentations, public meetings, and involvement with local organizations/groups our Partnership has improved the well being of children and families.
Public Meetings
Through collaboration with University Extension, several communities meeting were held to gather information and needs and assets in our communities. This information gave us a good baseline on what people wanted and needed. This information was later confirmed with other communities meetings and surveys conducted by the Partnership.
Use of Media
Our Partnership has been very successful in using the local media to get our message out to the five large communities in our county. This has allowed us to get out what we as a Partnership want to accomplish and what is needed to be accomplished in our communities based on the above communities meetings and other data. The media as a whole has been very cooperative in providing radio airtime, newspaper articles, public service announcements, and information through various community calendars.
Establishment of Local Committee and Participation in Existing Committees
Through our participation in and establishing need groups/committees/councils our Partnership has been able to start several initiative and events.
Results
Transportation Collaboration
Our Partnership in collaboration with five other agencies formed the St. Francois County Transportation Collaborative to find alternatives for transportation for needy people in our county. Meeting with community leaders and consumers gave our collaborative very valuable information on the need for good transportation in our county. Our work with the Workforce Investment Board will hopefully bring needed funds to our country for transportation needs.
Family Wellness Fair
This annual event brings together over 50 regional health/medical related services/business to inform people of services. Additionally, the local hospital and college donate personnel and supplies to provide flu shots, blood pressure checks, eye screenings, cholesterol checks, and many more health related services. Local businesses donate food and drinks, as well as door prizes for those needy children and families in attendance.
Caring Communities Holiday Season
Through collaboration with our five school districts, DFS, Head Start, we provided ensured a happy holidays for over 950 children in 2001. Through the kindness of our citizens, churches, and many other groups many families where sponsored or enough toys and funds were donated to make for a holiday season. This was only made possible by our well-established reputation.
Parkland Area Dental Services
This is a current ongoing project that grew out of our Remote Area Medical Health Expedition. RAM provided dental services (fillings/extractions/cleanings) for almost 500 people. These services were valued at $65,000, not including the donation of food, services, and equipment. This project is in cooperation with local dentists and hygienists, five county health departments, and the Partnership. We have received donated equipment and space to start a Medicaid only dental clinic. Limited services should be available by summer.
Friends of the Family
The Partnership while giving a talk to the local Kiwanis Club started this. A local businessman was appalled by the Child Abuse/Neglect statistics and has started this group to reduce that statistic.
Friends of the Family has been able to get a building donated to house offices and to provide a source of funds to run the program in the future. This was made possible by the collaboration with our Partnership. The work has started to make the donated building a source of funding for the program. Additionally, our Partnership and Friends of the Family will apply for a Children’s Trust Funds Grant to provide initial operational cost.
United Way of St. Francois County
The Partnership is represented as a board member on the local United Way. Through this association, our Partnership has made known to several organizations the grants available from United Way. North County Caring Communities applied and received a $3,000 grant to support attendance support groups and incentive programs to make children successful in school.
Upward Bound/EXCEL
The Partnership is represented on the advisory committees of both these programs at Mineral Area College. Upward Bound works to get children into college by working with them in high school to get them academically and mentally ready to go to college and once in college EXCEL works with the students to keep them in school. Making them more productive and contributing citizens to their communities.
21st Century Community Learning Center Grants
Our county is very lucky to have two of these grant programs to serve children in three of our five school districts. The Partnership participates on the advisory board of both programs. These are relatively new and our Partnership is working to finds ways to provide assistance and programs for the after-school activities.
Five County Chambers of Commerce
Though our membership in the five main chambers of commerce in our county, we have been able to get more of the business community involved in our goals our events/programs and informed of the importance of improving the well-being of children and families as how it related to the economic development of our region.
American Cancer Society
The Executive Director personally serves as the chairman for the local community council and is working to accomplish the ACS’s 2015 goals. One of which is the reduction of smoking among teenagers.
Other
Our involvement in the following groups/organizations have led to the start of several small programs and planted the seeds for others:
- Housing: (USDA Rural Development; East Missouri Action Agency; Habitat for Humanity; LIFE Center)
- Smoke-free Environments: (SAFE-Farmington; ACS)
- Child Safety: (Project KIDCARE)
- Sharing Ideas: (Inter-Agency Council)
- Improved DFS Services: (CQI)
Funding/Return on Investment Friends of the Family received the donation of the building (approx $600,000) to support their program. Our work with the FOTF Director to receive this was relatively small compared to the value of the building.
The awareness concerning the lack of dental services brought out by the success of the RAM Health Expedition and the partnerships that grew out of that event, has led to the donation of dental equipment (valued between $10-20,000), outstanding compared to the time involved.
Noteworthy
The Friends of the Family has been a very noteworthy collaboration -- from the donation of the building to the cooperation from law enforcement and Division of Family Services.
Additionally, the successful start to the formation of the partnerships to open the area Medicaid dental clinic are going to be very important to the improved health among our children.
Barriers/Road Blocks
The biggest barrier to our work is the lack of knowledge among people in the communities about problems in their neighborhoods. Also, the lack of knowledge by consumers of the different services available for their use.
Additionally, schools can play a huge role in informing and changing attitudes and actions of children and adults alike, but we find that they are resistance to letting groups/organizations to give the students the information.
