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Organization: Indian River County Healthy Start Coalition, Inc. Program: TLC Newborn Funder: IRC Board of County Commissioners — Children's Services Advisory Committee - 0546 Grant Application Be PROGRAM NEED STATEMENT (Entire Section B not to exceed one page) 1 . a) What is the unacceptable condition requiring change? b) Who has the need? c) Where do they live? d) Provide local, state, or national trend data, with reference source, that corroborates that this is an area of need. What: Babies do not come with instruction books . In today' s system of health care, the mothers of newborns are released from the hospital within 48 hours, and in many cases it is less than 24 hours . Unlike past - - - generations, support systems, such as the newborn ' s grandmother, aunts or even available health care providers for these mothers are in many cases non-existent, particularly in the State of Florida that has many transplant residents . This leads the mother and family to fend for themselves . In many cases, there is nowhere to turn for parents of newborns to help with even the most basic of infant care issues, such as : handling, feeding, nurturing, safety and growth/brain development. The TLC Newborn program fills this void and gap of care, education and support. Who : Indian River County had 1 ,213 births in 2003 . In 2002, almost half of all births are covered under Medicaid or indigent funding. Of all the births in 2002 (the latest year for complete birth data), 39 .2 % were to unwed mothers, with black unwed births at 70% . In terms of education status of the newborn ' s mother, 28 . 9% did not have a 12th grade education or GED . These figures above primarily address families at higher risk, but race, income status, lack of two parent homes, and education level are not the only risk factors for addressing the needs of an infant. How to properly take care of a baby crosses all socio and economic boundaries. Where : The TLC program serves mothers and families of newborns throughout the entire county. Approximately 20 .3 % of the births were from the Vero Beach zip code (32960), 16 . 9% in the Oslo — southeast zip code (32962), 13 . 8 % in the Gifford/Winter Beach/Wabasso zip code (32967), 12 . 2 % in the Sebastian zip code (32958) and 9 . 1 % in the Fellsmere zip code (32948) . Other parts of the county encompass the remaining percentage. The information reported above is derived from birth outcome data provided to Healthy Start from the Florida Department of Health — Vital Statistic Office. There are no programs or services that provide "universal" support for all families of newborns besides the TLC Newborn program in Indian River County. 2 . a) Identify similar programs that are currently serving the needs of your targeted population ; b) Explain how these existing programs are under-serving the targeted population of your program. The TLC Program is totally unique not only in Indian River County, but in the entire state of Florida. The program is unique due to its universal nature, and touches almost every family of newborns in Indian River County. Healthy Start Care Coordination and Healthy Families have similar target populations with regard to the infants and families of newborns , but they only serve those families who are scored "at-risk" on the Healthy Start/Families postnatal screen. They are primarily intensive home-based case management programs, with the majority of services beginning prenatally. In contrast,' TLC serves all pregnant moms regardless of risk. This is important because some risks do not appear until after the baby is delivered. Thus, TLC serves as a critical safety net for all pregnant moms . 5