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Indian River County Healthy Start Coalition, Inc. — 2003 -04 Healthy Families — IRC Program IRC Board of County Commissioners — Children 's Services Advisory Committee PROPOSAL NARRATIVE A. ORGANIZATION CAPABILITY (Entire Section A not to exceed one page) 1 . Provide the mission statement and vision of your organization. The mission of the Indian River County Healthy Start Coalition is to establish a system that guarantees all women have access to prenatal care and that all infants have access to services that promote normal growth and development. The vision is to provide the resources and mechanisms available in Indian River County that lead to healthy birth outcomes and brain development. The Vision/Mission Statement for the HF-IRC program is "To enhance parent ' s ability to promote and maintain healthy family life through education and coordinated support which is individualized for each family. " 2 . Provide a brief summary of your organization including areas of expertise, accomplishments and population served. The Coalition ' s purpose is to provide coordination and build broad-based community support for maternal and child health (MCH) . This is accomplished by establishing a partnership between the private and public sector, state and local government, community alliances and maternal and child health providers to provide coordinated community based care for pregnant women, infants and families with children up to age three for Healthy Start and age five for Healthy Families . Areas of expertise include birth and maternal data analysis, program planning, development, implementation, and addressing gaps in MCH services . Once gaps in service or poor birth outcome trends have been identified, then the necessary steps are taken to improve these gaps in care by building bridges, linkages or adding new services if they currently do not exist to meet the MCH needs in Indian River County. Additional areas of expertise include outreach, providing educational opportunities addressing MCH issues, and ensuring a system is in place for pregnant women, infants and children . The Coalition serves as the lead agency for Healthy Families — IRC in partnership with the Exchange Club C .A. S . T . L. E . , who is the contracted service agency. The program has provided intensive case management to over 100 families each year since 1999 , with the primary goal of preventing child abuse in at-risk families . The IRCHS Coalition also developed and put in place the TLC Newborn Program in 1998 , which serves approximately 1 , 000 infants each year, as well as the parents of these newborns . In addition, the Coalition oversees Healthy Start Care Coordination services in partnership with the Indian River County Health Department, which served over 500 families in 2002 . Beginning in 2003 , the Coalition launched a child safety campaign and became a Safe Kids Chapter in January. The vision of Safe Kids is to "Protect the children of our community . . . through education, outreach and community involvement". The Safe Kids programs focuses on child passenger safety, infant, home and bicycle safety education and initiatives . The program has already proven to be extremely beneficial in bringing new resources to the community by getting over 60 child safety seats donated from the state, with potential Department of Transportation funds available for additional seats and safety interventions . To date, over 100 child passenger seat inspections have taken place by the Coalition' s Outreach Coordinator, who plans and coordinates the Safe Kids program . 4