Health Services Program Overview Health Services

Who We Are: We provide public health opportunities that help create equitable socio-economic environments to improve the health status of the entire community.

Our Vision: Our programs will enable individuals and families to live healthier lifestyles and take control their own health determinants.

Division Background: Health is both a cause and a consequence of poverty. Our programs and partnerships focus on reducing health disparities among vulnerable populations through a collaborative approach to improving access to care and influencing public policy and systems change. We believe that by maximizing the participation of the community and implementing both innovative and evidence-based practices in community health, Sonoma County will be a vibrant, healthy place for all people to live well.

Our Community Health Workers and Public Health Nurses work in partnership with the families we serve to provide education and prevention services to clients promoting healthy behaviors and empowering them to take control of their own health determinants.

The Health Division of Community Action Partnership of Sonoma County encompass a wide range of medical and other health promotion and disease prevention services that emphasize advocacy and civic engagement, early detection and follow up care, health education and application, and improved access to existing health care resources for the county's underserved pediatric population. The goal of this division under the Community Action umbrella is to improve community health determinants and individual well-being among low income, vulnerable populations as a primary means of moving families out of poverty and towards self-sufficiency.

What We Do: Our programs include Healthy Communities, School Nurses, Save Our Smiles!, Mental Health Prevention and Early Intervention, and Kids' Net as well as integrated health service projects within the Head Start/Early Head Start and School Readiness programs.

• School Health: conduct comprehensive school health assessments and interventions from elementary through high school.
• Kid's Net: facilitate 1-on-1 interventions to help connect children to healthcare and establish into a medical home and obtain insurance coverage.
• Save Our Smiles!: Identifying and promoting best practices in prevention and early detection of childhood caries by means of the Sonoma County Oral Health Access Coalition advocacy, prevention and community activities.
• Healthy Communities: Helping families change their lifestyles through health education, hands on application and culturally competent case management services and bringing best practices to Sonoma County.
• Partnerships: Community Action is part of a range of community efforts including: Reducing the impact of mental health and behavioral health issues for Sonoma County through incorporating consumer input and provider and public education in order to help prevent mental illness. Helping to address hunger and access to food through Food Stamp outreach and partnership with the Food Access Coalition. Helping to design the integration of the Nurse Family Partnership program with the needs of the community.