FAMILY HEALTH SERVICES

PROGRAM MISSION: To prevent adverse health conditions, and promote optimal physical, social and mental health outcomes for women and children through appropriate family planning, prenatal, child health, early intervention, nutritional and preventive dental services.

The programs in this area include Family Planning; Maternal Health; Child Health; Immunizations; Women, Infants, and Children (WIC); and Dental services.

• The goals of the Family Planning Program are to prevent unintended pregnancy, support planned conception and promote the health of women of childbearing age by providing clinic services, contraceptive information and health education regarding the number and spacing of children.

• The goals of the Maternal Health Program are to prevent poor pregnancy outcomes and promote optimum future functioning of the mother and child by providing prenatal care consisting of clinic services, health education, nutrition counseling and case management services. Women served by the program have no insurance coverage and would otherwise have no access to prenatal care. In the last four weeks of their pregnancy, clients are transferred to the Virginia Hospital Center-Arlington clinic for their final weeks of care and delivery. The goal of the Resource Mothers Program (grant funded) is to prevent poor pregnancy outcomes among infants of adolescent mothers by improving access to early, comprehensive prenatal care, and promoting utilization of other needed health services.

• The goals of the Child Health Program are to prevent childhood disease, disability, or mortality and to promote optimum physical and mental development by providing preventive health assessments and parental education at recommended intervals for infants and children through the age of five years. The Immunization Program provides immunizations to children in order to prevent morbidity and mortality from vaccine-preventable diseases. Immunizations are one of the most effective public health interventions available.

• The goal of the Case Management Program is to promote family empowerment and self-sufficiency through the home-based interventions of assessment, teaching, guidance, advocacy and community linkages. The Case Management Program provides universal assessment for all referrals, including Healthy Families and other support programs. The Comprehensive Health Investment Project of Virginia (CHIP) targets the physical health and well being of children, from birth to six years of age, through home-based visiting services and the provision of linkages with other community based health care providers. CHIP services assist the family by addressing factors such as housing, nutrition, education, employment and parenting skills.

• The goal of the Women, Infants and Children Program (WIC) is to prevent nutritional deficiencies and to support optimum growth and development for the medically indigent, maternal and child health population. The program provides a combination of direct nutritional supplementation, nutrition education, and increased access to health care and social services for pregnant, breast-feeding and postpartum women; infants; and children up to the age of five years. To better meet the needs of the community, WIC services are located in community sites such as Arlington Mill, the Career Center for teens, and Fort Myer.

• The goal of the Dental Program is to prevent the harmful effects of dental disease through preventive and diagnostic core services, with restorative services provided as needed. The target populations are children through high school age, with special emphasis given to preventive treatments among children in grades two and five, adults age 60 and older, and adults referred from the County's Refugee Clinic. Requests from other adult clients (up to age 60) of the Department of Human Services are referred to the Northern Virginia Regional Dental Clinic, which is a cooperative program among Northern Virginia jurisdictions.

SIGNIFICANT BUDGET HIGHLIGHTS:

• Non-Personnel costs are reduced with the reallocation of funds from clerical agency temps into personnel as a result of reallocating 0.5 FTE from School Health to combine with a current 0.5 FTE for a full 1.0 FTE in the WIC program.

• Total revenues increased ($65,448) as a result of increases in Family Planning and Maternity client fees ($31,800); increases in Other Grants ($40,820) for Family Planning ,WIC, and MCH Perinatal Grants; increase in State CO-OP share ($14,424) with offset reductions in Medicaid ($12,266) for Child Health: and Federal Grants ($9,330) for CHIP of Virginia.

• FTEs increase by 0.5 FTE due to a reallocation from School Health for the WIC program.

PERFORMANCE MEASURES:

Family Planning Program

• The state standard target for percent of unintended pregnancies is 30%.

Maternity Program

Child Health Program

Immunization Program

• In FY 1991, only 53% of children were adequately immunized by 24 months of age.

• FY 2004 actuals for immunizations increased due to rise in number of flu shots given.

Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) Program

• FY 2003 saw a decrease in the number of WIC eligible residents in Arlington. State target for Arlington reduced from 3,900 in FY 2003 to 3,600 in FY 2004.

Dental Program

• The number of dentures completed will vary from year to year depending on the dentition of our senior clients.