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Minutes for the Meeting of May 9, 2008

Present:

BJ Valente	Fran Fuller	Joan Gancarski
Mike Coughlin	Bea Medeiros	Susan Dickens
David Weed	Paula Harrison	Denise Wright
Marcia Picard	Karen Scott-Statser
Roger Dextradeur	Russell Munson	Stephanie Patton
Ron O’Connor	Christine Cowen	Lina Rebelo
Robin Jones	Maureen Holliday

A meeting of Partners for a Healthier Community was held on Friday, May 9, 2008 at the Surgical Conference Room at Charlton Hospital in Fall River. BJ Valente called the meeting to order at 8:30 AM.

Minutes

The minutes of the April 11 Steering Committee were circulated in advance.

VOTED to approve the Minutes of the April 11, 2008 meeting of Partners for a Healthier Community as circulated.

Financial Report

Financial Report was circulated at the meeting.

VOTED to approve Financial Report through May 8, 2008. (attached)

Prior to the reports from work groups, Christine Henley Cowen, Regional Service Coordinator for EDCO Collaborative – representing the Massachusetts Migrant Education Program – gave a brief talk on her program.

Contact numbers: 508-824-7588 – Hotline: 1-800-234-8848 Email: chenley@edcollab.org

“The primary goal of the migrant education program is to ensure that all migrant children achieve success in school and graduate with a high school diploma (or complete a GED) that prepares them for responsible citizenship, further learning and productive employment”.

Eligibility - A Child Must…

- be between the ages of 3-21 and not have graduated from high school, AND

- have a parent, guardian or spouse who is a migrant worker, AND

- have moved in the past 36 months to seek, obtain or to accompany or join a parent or guardian or spouse who is a temporary or seasonal worker in food or fish processing or in agriculture.

Report of Work Groups

Access to Health Care And Healthy Lifestyles

No meeting in April. Next meeting will be May 13 at 3 PM at Health First. Access to Health Care and Healthy Lifestyles will be joining forces. There will be changes around these 2 groups in the future. Each group together needs to address their goals for the next year. Follow up to the Disparities PBS show could be a beginning option for Access to Health Care after June 30 event or showing.

Healthy Youth

BJ reported today.

Mayor’s Youth Conference was extremely successful. Youth Leaders were exceptional. Their skills were excellent. The Keynote Speaker from Dorchester was great. There was very good representation. Were hoping for 40 participants and ended up with 90 from Durfee High School With a total of 120.

The kids ran the show at the Summit – Adults listened more than talked. It was very impressive.

THERE WILL NOT BE A POSTER CONTEST THIS YEAR IN JUNE. Moving it to the fall. It has been too hard to coordinate people from Westport, Swansea, Somerset and Fall River and there is an opportunity to collaborate with other groups for a poster contest in the fall and more time to engage other towns.

Healthy City Initiative

May 10 – Grand Finale to the Fitness Challenge

Grand total of pounds lost have been calculated but remains a secret.

Bill Daponte is back on his feet and will be at the final event.

This challenge has launched so much interest and activity in fitness and weight loss that the Fall River Police Department has now challenged the Fall River Fire Department.

Now looking at seeking funding for ongoing challenges. May even pay someone in the future to record figures, etc. Hats off to CD recreation and Diabetes Association for a wonderful program.

American Heart Association Fall River Walking Groups. The route starts at the Y goes to St. Anne’s back to Spring Street to Troy Street and then back to the Y. They will be working on the signs along the route.

Walk to School There will be a total of 6 schools participating this year starting in the Fall.

Spring Awards Dinner April 30 – Another successful turnout of award getters and representatives of the area to hear the. Mass. DPH Commissioner John Auerbach. Mike Coughlin successfully kept us on schedule after a lengthy dinner service. The new location was quite accommodating and comfortable.

In March 2003 was the first summit to kick off Healthy Cities. David mentioned that he is looking to organize another summit in March 2009 at BCC. To review accomplishments and set plans and goals for another five years.

Children in Balance - There is a meeting today at Tufts. Will update next month.

Meeting on Tuesday May 20 which is the second meeting around local businesses and how they can offer fitness in the workplace. Met with business owners through the Camber of Commerce New Bedford and Fall River membership. Thinking of putting together a conference for employees in the fall. It has been discussed that smaller employers (Mom and Pop businesses) have a difficult time with this due to lack of facilities.

June 6 Meeting – Partnership for Heart Healthy Stroke Free Massachusetts.

June 7 Meeting – Barney Frank is speaking at the Coalition for Social Justice at White’s.

Nominating Committee:

Will soon be asking for nominations for officer and chairperson for sub groups. This will be organized through July and August and brought up at the September meeting. New officers, etc., to take over at October meeting.

There will be 3-4 meeting held in June and July. These are open meetings but only those on the Steering Committee are voting members.

BJ asked for volunteers for the Nominating Committee:

Responses:

Fran Fuller – Marcia Picard – David Weed

Ron O’Connor attended today giving much information on the revival of SYNERGY and the importance of the DPH sponsored documentary UNNATURAL CAUSES ---

SYNERGY: started in 2000 as a Pilot Project to create a networking group for Public Health issues. It has been on the back burner so to speak and is now being revived. Since the year 2000 there was a requirement for all CHNA’s to set aside $500. annually and that account balance is now up to $8000.00. Our Fall River CHNA is completely up to date with our $500.00 annual commitment. Now area CHNA’s have the opportunity to determine how this money will be spent.

UNNATURAL CAUSES – a 4-hour documentary series that explores America’s racial and socioeconomic inequities in health. Flyer was distributed at last meeting and today also. $4000.00 has been set aside by DPH for the Fall River /New Bedford area to plan an event on this topic ($2000. for Fall River and $2000. for New Bedford). Event must be completed by June 30, 2008! Much discussion followed ---

This documentary has been shown in Worcester, Boston and Northeast Mass and now DPH would appreciate assistance in pulling it all together in this area. Many questions ----

David – Challenge is getting the proper people to attend. He asked Ron his opinion on who should attend.

BJ – Can the $2000.00 be spent on any kind of promotion or are there guidelines/restrictions?

Everyone believes that area community health leaders, policy makers – schools government representatives, those involved in illness preventions. Also adding it to nursing school curriculum might promote more interest. Students could do a lot with it.

Ron passed around a sample of what Boston did – It was a 3-hour event.

Discussion followed on what sort of event this should be --- for instance, would it be best if it “piggy backed” with another area event already planned or a stand alone event.

It was finally decided that since the film itself is long – 1 ½ hours – then it needs to be a stand alone event.

Promotion of the event ---

News media coverage? Cable TV? Who has the rights to air it?

Need to organize a list of who to invite and ask them to bring other interested parties with them but an RSVP would be necessary for a head count.

After much discussion it was decided that since there is no poster contest next month, which would have been a large part of the June Partners meeting, it would be added to the agenda of our June 13 meeting.

For more information on the subject go to www.unnaturalcauses.org. There are clips of the video there.

Additional information since the meeting Breakfast meeting on June 25^th to air the production and have a panel discussion plans are in the works . More to come at our June 13^th meeting.

Announcements:

No CHNA meeting in July.

New CEO has been hired at Health First – Julie Ellman.

Paula distributed a flyer “Time for Us” for Mothers and Daughters ages 10-17 on May 21.

Rick Medeiros, Director of Security for the Pawtucket Red Sox, will be discussing Safety Awareness and Self Defense with other sessions on other topics to follow.

For information call Paula at 774-627-1204.

June 7 - 10 AM – 1 PM --- Family Fun in the Sun day – Annual event

Fun activities such as a DJ and child seat demonstrations.

June 13 – Swing into Summer – Cocktail Party at Marine Museum.

Health First is also planning a November event – something like “Dancing with the Stars” with local celebrities – 5 men and 5 women will take dance lessons to compete at this event. Local dancers will be announced at the Swing into Summer event.

BJ has received information regarding United Way grants. Applications need to be in by May 28. There are several categories with a variety of funding attached to each. Announcements at end of July.

Meeting Adjourned at 10:00 am

Next Meeting – June 13, 2008

Southcoast Hospitals – Charlton Site

NOTE CHANGE BELOW:

* Change in meeting room location for April 11, May 9, June 13:

The Surgical Conference Room at Charlton has been reserved for the two displaced meetings.

Directions:

Enter through the main entrance and go down the main stairway to ground level. Turn left. The first set of double doors on your left will be Cardiac Surgical Services area. There is a paddle on the wall to your right, which will open the doors. The conference room is the first room on the left. (There is an elevator in the main lobby just before the Admitting area that will take you to ground level if needed).

Links to Minutes of Previous Meetings